Sainsbury's noticed a trend recently that millions of buyers were straying to other retailers like Aldi and Lidl to take advantage of bargains and in the process hurting its own sales
A British retail giant is testing a ‘punishment model’ for its customers who choose to purchase elsewhere using its shopping card.
Sainsbury's, who now owns the Nectar card scheme will no longer reward a point for each pound spent, but instead, give larger rewards to the users who shop more at Sainsbury's.
Nectar is a shopping card which allows the owners to shop at over 500 brands including BP petrol stations and eBay, and users are rewarded with points. Once the customers have collected points, that can be used to shop at the Nectar website or Sainsbury's.
Earlier Nectar was a standalone scheme of which Sainsbury's was a member since 2002. However, the retailer bought it last month in a GBP 60 million (Rs 548 crore) deal.
This comes after Sainsbury's noticed that millions of its regular shoppers were making a shift to other more economical retailers like Aldi and Lidl for bargains and in the process hurting its own sales.
To curb that, the retail giant is going to run the trial across all of its stores from April 12, reported The Telegraph UK.
The company says that it aims to reward loyal Sainsbury's customers with more points, meaning those who shop at a range of stores may lose out.
The customers who will be under trial will also be given access to its new app which will show user-specific offers based on their past shopping. The app will also have the ability to collect points using a QR code on a smartphone.