Nectar loyalty card

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The Nectar loyalty card is a loyalty card scheme in the United Kingdom issued by a partnership of suppliers including the supermarket chain Sainsbury's, the credit card American Express and the petrol distributors BP. It was launched in the autumn of 2002.

The Nectar scheme was launched by the founder of Air Miles, Sir Keith Mills and is operated by the privately held Loyalty Management UK (LMUK). The Nectar Helpline is based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Mumbai, India.

The Nectar Card scheme was relaunched in Summer 2007 to celebrate 5 years of the card. The scheme was changed from rewards to treats based program.

Contents

[edit] Benefits

Mills has the benefits of the scheme as follows [1]:

  • Shared cost — Tesco spends £150 million per annum on its Clubcard
  • Estimated initial 50%-250% return on investment
  • Increased retention — Due to the nature of the Nectar scheme, a customer who shops regularly with more than one partner company can gain points faster. This reduces the chances of disillusionment or fatigue.
  • More sophisticated offers — he points out that in many cases Tesco is spending several hundred pounds giving discounts to customers who would be loyal in any case.
  • "Overlap" — The collaboration increases the chance of attracting new customers, for example a frequent customer of a BP filling station who joins Nectar may be tempted into a nearby Sainsbury's where they otherwise would not shop (and vice versa) to gain rewards faster.
  • To turn "tertiary" or secondary buyers into "primary buyers" — i.e. (to use the Sainsbury's example again) to turn a customer who buys just the essentials at their local store into a customer who does the main shopping at that store.

[edit] Criticisms

In its early days, the Nectar scheme received criticism from Which? magazine as being amongst the worst loyalty schemes on offer. At the time, Which? said some consumers who spent £5,000 on Barclaycard received as little as £12.50 in points to redeem, while Sainsbury's customers had to spend as much as £1,000 just to get two tickets to the cinema. [2]

There also remains concerns similar to all loyalty programmes with users worried about the commercial use of the personal data collected as part of the programmes. Consumer purchases can be tracked and analysed resulting in more efficient marketing and advertising.

[edit] Current members

Launch members:

Other members (in the order they joined):

[edit] Former members

  • Barclaycard (Was a launch member, however membership ended on 31 August 2005)
  • Vodafone (Membership ended on 31 August 2005)
  • Threshers Group
  • Winemark (Northern Ireland only)
  • ebookers (Still a redemption partner, where you can spend your points)
  • Debenhams (Was a launch member, however membership ended on 15 February 2008)

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sir Keith Mills describes Nectar benefits
  2. ^ Has Nectar played its cards right? bbc.co.uk

[edit] External links

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Sainsbury's
Retail:
Financial services:
Customer programmes:
Nectar loyalty card · Sainsbury's Active Kids
See also:
Notes:
1Both Shaw's and Sainsbury's Homebase have since been sold on
Annual revenue: £18,518 million GBP (▲7% FY 2007) · Employees: 153,000 ·
Stock symbol: (LSE: SBRY) · Website: j-sainsbury.co.uk
v • d • e
Nectar loyalty card
Members:
Former members:
Redemption partner: