Retailers have clocked a seismic shift in customers being more open and willing to share their data to enjoy a tailored, holistic and rewarding shopping experience.
This global behavioural evolution – which has its roots in the accelerated e-commerce phenomenon consumers underwent during the pandemic – is particularly marked in Australia, where shoppers tend to be big fans of loyalty programs.
Classic loyalty programs are centred around capturing data and are powered by the adaptivity of data sharing. That sharing leads to a better overall customer journey and stronger customer retention, as shoppers are exposed to content relevant to their preferences and lifestyle – versus offers that don’t fit their needs or wants.
This is just one part of what drives most Australian shoppers to use loyalty cards – from buying groceries and everyday essentials to making a dream purchase or finding themselves at the checkout with an impulse buy. Reward programs are a powerful incentive for using loyalty cards, with 85 per cent of Australians using at least one loyalty card and 66 per cent using them at least once a week. Physical loyalty card use tends to be skewed towards Baby Boomers (76 per cent) and Gen X (71 per cent) in terms of weekly usage, compared to 57 per cent of millennials and 46 per cent of Gen-Z reaching for the plastic each week. More than half of shoppers polled in that demographic say they feel overwhelmed by the number of loyalty cards offered to them by retailers.
For the past five years, the loyalty card app Stocard has been serving and winning customers throughout Australia. It’s designed as a solution to collect all of a consumer’s loyalty cards in one place on their smartphone – eliminating the need to carry the plastic cards. The app has 5 million users in Australia. It serves as a media channel, working with retail partners to present offers within a variety of creative content inside the platform, marketing goods and services to the Stocard user base.
Stocard became part of the Klarna shopping ecosystem last year, which will eventually see the service positioned in tandem with other initiatives for participating retailers and consumers, from opportunities to partner with Klarna’s affiliates programme to checking your CO2 emissions.
“There are many creative solutions that we can partner on with brands and retailers,’ says Stocard commercial lead at Klarna ANZ, Tyler Condon. “People use Stocard for the convenience of storing all of their loyalty cards in one place, digitising them all, eliminating the need to carry any of those cards. Alongside that is the performance media channel, where Stocard users can check out the offers tab and see what all these amazing brands and retailers in Australia are running from a promotional standpoint at any given time throughout the year. So retailers can run digital catalogues, digital carousels, interactive videos, short-form videos, and more – similar to creative assets that can be used across social channels such as Facebook and Instagram. We can run multiple creative solutions for brands and retailers to engage with the user base.”
While many performance media channels are delivering strong impressions to consumers, Stocard delivers a higher click-through rate compared to most other channels because users are directly engaging with the app with the intent to explore retailers’ offers and make purchases. The app is creating positive shopper experiences, capturing the emotional experience associated with loyalty to a particular brand – and it makes an environmental impact, with Stocard having helped recycle more than 600 million plastic loyalty cards worldwide over the past decade.
“It’s something that’s helped elevate both the in-store and online shopping experience,” says Condon. “Being able to provide something tangible to a customer to reward them for their loyalty and keep them coming back for more. The landscape is more competitive than ever, so brands with their loyalty programmes structured in the right way to create returning customers and provide tangible benefits around their programme will come off the back of Covid weathering the storm and seeing ongoing success.”
Retailers interested in using Stocard from a marketing perspective or as a provider for a loyalty programme are invited to connect with the firm for more information. To read more, click here to visit the company’s website.
