Fostering customer loyalty in the grocery sector is nothing new. This age-old strategy can help create an emotional connection between retailers and customers, driving sales and business growth. However, in an ever-evolving landscape, the way in which retailers build customer loyalty is changing.
The pandemic dramatically changed how customers shop, with our research highlighting that customers shopped less frequently and were shopping larger baskets. The shift to ecommerce also accelerated. According to research, 34% of US households said that they were shopping for groceries online more than they did pre-pandemic.
The fight for loyalty has intensified, with grocery retailers using granular insights about their customers and macro trends to create loyalty programmes that are intelligent, sophisticated, and more profitable than ever.
In our recent report – Defining Loyalty: How Customer First loyalty can drive success in retail – we explored the potential of customer loyalty in post-pandemic grocery retailers, drawing on our standing as a global leader in data science and analytics.
Here, we highlight some of the key trends in customer loyalty identified in the report that are shaping the retail market in a post-pandemic world.
With the growth in ecommerce, grocery retailers must engage with customers both online and in-store by ensuring a seamless customer experience across multiple touchpoints. Personalised shopping experiences can prevent shoppers from being bombarded with disjointed messages across touchpoints that may cause them to shop elsewhere. Gone are the days of traditional award points collected en masse by customers. Instead, today’s customers require a joined-up approach with tailored, personalised experiences across all touchpoints, enabling them to find and pay for products seamlessly while ensuring value, convenience, and safety.
Here are three ways our research showed that grocery retailers can achieve this:
A disjointed digital journey can be off-putting for customers. A single platform, such as a digital app, enhances the user experience by supporting customers at all stages of the online and digitally-enabled instore shopping experience, providing a frictionless flawless experience from the first touchpoint to the last.
Loyalty ecosystems can help maximise the value of the customer asset through strategic partnerships that put customer data at the heart of the platform. For example, grocery retailers can combine multiple shopping, social, entertainment, payment and financial management into an intuitive single platform or app. B2B services can further enhance these loyalty ecosystems. For example, Amazon Prime, offers a raft of B2B services to other retailers that grow the connected (Amazon) asset and deliver additional benefits to customers.
Subscription programmes can help lock-in customer loyalty by offering enhanced benefits and services of a high perceived value. It also benefits the retailer by creating a recurring revenue stream. According to research, 87% of customers satisfied with the benefits of a retailer’s paid loyalty programme will likely choose that retailer over a competitor offering a lower price. Walmart is one example of a retailer that has implemented a successful premium loyalty programme, which has helped drive balanced growth of higher-margin services across non-grocery and grocery products. Walmart+ members enjoy a wide range of enhanced and discounted services that help drive loyalty, including kerbside pickup, discounts on fuel and prescriptions, and free online delivery.
For a more detailed look at loyalty trends in the retail market, download our full report here.
Cookie | Description |
---|---|
cli_user_preference | The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store the yes/no selection the consent given for cookie usage. It does not store any personal data. |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement | Set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin, this cookie is used to record the user consent for the cookies in the "Advertisement" category . |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics | Set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin, this cookie is used to record the user consent for the cookies in the "Analytics" category . |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". |
CookieLawInfoConsent | The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store the summary of the consent given for cookie usage. It does not store any personal data. |
viewed_cookie_policy | The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data. |
wsaffinity | Set by the dunnhumby website, that allows all subsequent traffic and requests from an initial client session to be passed to the same server in the pool. Session affinity is also referred to as session persistence, server affinity, server persistence, or server sticky. |
Cookie | Description |
---|---|
wordpress_test_cookie | WordPress cookie to read if cookies can be placed, and lasts for the session. |
wp_lang | This cookie is used to remember the language chosen by the user while browsing. |
Cookie | Description |
---|---|
CONSENT | YouTube sets this cookie via embedded youtube-videos and registers anonymous statistical data. |
vuid | Vimeo installs this cookie to collect tracking information by setting a unique ID to embed videos to the website. |
_ga | The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognise unique visitors. |
_gat_gtag_UA_* | This cookie is installed by Google Analytics to store the website's unique user ID. |
_ga_* | Set by Google Analytics to persist session state. |
_gid | Installed by Google Analytics, _gid cookie stores information on how visitors use a website, while also creating an analytics report of the website's performance. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously. |
_hjSessionUser_{site_id} | This cookie is set by the provider Hotjar to store a unique user ID for session tracking and analytics purposes. |
_hjSession_{site_id} | This cookie is set by the provider Hotjar to store a unique session ID, enabling session recording and behavior analysis. |
_hp2_id_* | This cookie is set by the provider Hotjar to store a unique visitor identifier for tracking user behavior and session information. |
_hp2_props.* | This cookie is set by the provider Hotjar to store user properties and session information for behavior analysis and insights. |
_hp2_ses_props.* | This cookie is set by the provider Hotjar to store session-specific properties and data for tracking user behavior during a session. |
_lfa | This cookie is set by the provider Leadfeeder to identify the IP address of devices visiting the website, in order to retarget multiple users routing from the same IP address. |
Cookie | Description |
---|---|
aam_uuid | Set by LinkedIn, for ID sync for Adobe Audience Manager. |
AEC | Set by Google, ‘AEC’ cookies ensure that requests within a browsing session are made by the user, and not by other sites. These cookies prevent malicious sites from acting on behalf of a user without that user’s knowledge. |
AMCVS_14215E3D5995C57C0A495C55%40AdobeOrg | Set by LinkedIn, indicates the start of a session for Adobe Experience Cloud. |
AMCV_14215E3D5995C57C0A495C55%40AdobeOrg | Set by LinkedIn, Unique Identifier for Adobe Experience Cloud. |
AnalyticsSyncHistory | Set by LinkedIn, used to store information about the time a sync with the lms_analytics cookie took place for users in the Designated Countries (which LinkedIn determines as European Union (EU), European Economic Area (EEA), and Switzerland). |
bcookie | LinkedIn sets this cookie from LinkedIn share buttons and ad tags to recognise browser ID. |
bscookie | LinkedIn sets this cookie to store performed actions on the website. |
DV | Set by Google, used for the purpose of targeted advertising, to collect information about how visitors use our site. |
ELOQUA | This cookie is set by Eloqua Marketing Automation Tool. It contains a unique identifier to recognise returning visitors and track their visit data across multiple visits and multiple OpenText Websites. This data is logged in pseudonymised form, unless a visitor provides us with their personal data through creating a profile, such as when signing up for events or for downloading information that is not available to the public. |
gpv_pn | Set by LinkedIn, used to retain and fetch previous page visited in Adobe Analytics. |
lang | Session-based cookie, set by LinkedIn, used to set default locale/language. |
lidc | LinkedIn sets the lidc cookie to facilitate data center selection. |
lidc | Set by LinkedIn, used for routing from Share buttons and ad tags. |
li_gc | Set by LinkedIn to store consent of guests regarding the use of cookies for non-essential purposes. |
li_sugr | Set by LinkedIn, used to make a probabilistic match of a user's identity outside the Designated Countries (which LinkedIn determines as European Union (EU), European Economic Area (EEA), and Switzerland). |
lms_analytics | Set by LinkedIn to identify LinkedIn Members in the Designated Countries (which LinkedIn determines as European Union (EU), European Economic Area (EEA), and Switzerland) for analytics. |
NID | Set by Google, registers a unique ID that identifies a returning user’s device. The ID is used for targeted ads. |
OGP / OGPC | Set by Google, cookie enables the functionality of Google Maps. |
OTZ | Set by Google, used to support Google’s advertising services. This cookie is used by Google Analytics to provide an analysis of website visitors in aggregate. |
s_cc | Set by LinkedIn, used to determine if cookies are enabled for Adobe Analytics. |
s_ips | Set by LinkedIn, tracks percent of page viewed. |
s_plt | Set by LinkedIn, this cookie tracks the time that the previous page took to load. |
s_pltp | Set by LinkedIn, this cookie provides page name value (URL) for use by Adobe Analytics. |
s_ppv | Set by LinkedIn, used by Adobe Analytics to retain and fetch what percentage of a page was viewed. |
s_sq | Set by LinkedIn, used to store information about the previous link that was clicked on by the user by Adobe Analytics. |
s_tp | Set by LinkedIn, this cookie measures a visitor’s scroll activity to see how much of a page they view before moving on to another page. |
s_tslv | Set by LinkedIn, used to retain and fetch time since last visit in Adobe Analytics. |
test_cookie | Set by doubleclick.net (part of Google), the purpose of the cookie is to determine if the users' browser supports cookies. |
U | Set by LinkedIn, Browser Identifier for users outside the Designated Countries (which LinkedIn determines as European Union (EU), European Economic Area (EEA), and Switzerland). |
UserMatchHistory | LinkedIn sets this cookie for LinkedIn Ads ID syncing. |
UserMatchHistory | This cookie is used by LinkedIn Ads to help dunnhumby measure advertising performance. More information can be found in their cookie policy. |
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | A cookie set by YouTube to measure bandwidth that determines whether the user gets the new or old player interface. |
YSC | YSC cookie is set by YouTube and is used to track the views of embedded videos on YouTube pages. |
yt-remote-connected-devices | YouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video. |
yt-remote-device-id | YouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video. |
yt.innertube::nextId | This cookie, set by YouTube, registers a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen. |
yt.innertube::requests | This cookie, set by YouTube, registers a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen. |
_gcl_au | Set by Google Analytics, to take information in advert clicks and store it in a 1st party cookie so that conversions can be attributed outside of the landing page. |