Loyalty is a trend that doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon. Loyalty specialists, Coniq have just released a whitepaper which examines the benefits, uses, challenges and opinions around shopping centre loyalty. In the first survey of its kind over 500 shopping centre owners, managers and retailers as well as customers from across the world were surveyed.
The Shopping Centre Owner/Manager Perspective – Over 60 percent of Shopping Centres expect to implement a program in the next three years with 40 percent of which are planning to introduce one in the next year. Loyalty programs are seen to be adding value to the shopping centre industry as a whole by increasing sales, improving the customer experience and providing valuable shopper data.
The top 4 reasons to implement loyalty are:
When discussing their loyalty program, a shopping manager said: “We are able to discover gaps in our data and target customers with relevant messaging – this will always be useful to both tenants and management.”
The Tenant Perspective – Shopping Centres aren’t the only ones interested in loyalty programs, 71 percent of retailers who occupy space within shopping centres are interested in joining a centre wide loyalty program. For tenants, their initial concerns revolve around the technology. However these initial concerns are quick to disappear with 90 percent of tenants who are using Coniq’s technology finding it ‘easy to implement’ and ‘quick to use’ as it does not interfere with any existing technology. All parties agree that tenant engagement is essential to shopping centre loyalty success.
“We were initially worried about the technology and training the staff, but once this was done, it was actually very straightforward,” commented a retailer enrolled in a shopping centre loyalty program.
“Really good concept and a lot of people know about it and use it. The push notifications work really well for us and customers love it,” said a retailer enrolled in a shopping centre loyalty program.
The Shopper Perspective – Over 60 percent of shoppers who were surveyed stated that they are more likely to register for a loyalty program if they were told by retailers at the point of sale. 50 percent of shoppers would prefer to use their mobile app to manage their points and to find the latest rewards. The physical card is proving to be just as important in particular for the activation stage, with over 80 percent of shoppers using a physical card to register for the program in store.
Ben Chesser, Coniq’s founder and CEO, said: “This research has given us a real insight into the minds of all those involved in loyalty programs. We already know that shopping centres are keen to implement loyalty programs, but what is interesting is that tenants are starting to ask for them too. I think as the awareness for these programs grows more and more, we will begin to see a shift towards tenants asking their shopping centre to implement a loyalty program.”
Coniq are specialists in loyalty and customer engagement for Shopping Centres, Retail, BIDs and Hospitality. Coniq’s proprietary data-driven marketing and loyalty platform allows for multi-tenant redemption, making loyalty seamless across multiple POS environments.
