Indian Loyalty examples

As in continuation of the previous post on Retail Loyalty programs: http://fmcg-marketing.blogspot.com/2007/10/loyalty-programs-in-india.html

Pantaloon Retail

• Pantaloon offers loyalty programs for three different retail store formats:

• “Shakti Credit Card” exclusively for housewives at Big Bazaar stores in association with ICICI Bank.

• They only need to show their Big Bazaar bill of more than Rs. 500 and a lifestyle proof like club membership card etc. to use this card (at Food Bazaar outlets too). The card carries no fee and comes with a credit limit of Rs 5,000 with 50 days' credit period.

• Central-ICICI Bank card for its Central Mall customers. Benefits: Reward points and a zero percent EMI option.

• Green card for its Apparel business which has exclusive discounts and privileges with Apparel, perfumes & cosmetics, toys, Planet Sports & accessories. They practice a 4 – tier (1, 3, 5, and 7- Star) approach to cater to different segments.
  

HUL

90% of HUL customers pay with cash. This fact prompted the behemoth to come up with a pilot of a loyalty program to drive consumption and build relationships with customers in this category. HUL test marketed the program in Southern India with plans for expansion.

The program will allow customers to earn points for all HUL products purchased with cash. The points can then be redeemed for rewards including HUL's own products, electronic items or travel tickets. The program will allow the company to track the buying habits of its cash customers, a technique crucial to maintaining market share by targeting low value transactions.

SBI Tie-ups

SBI cards and the retail chain Lifestyle announced the launch of a co-branded card to target

the frequent shoppers. The program offers four reward points for every Rs 100 spent at any of the eight Lifestyle stores, transaction fee waivers and reward points on fuel purchases above Rs 400 on IndianOil and IBP

gas pumps. SBI has also launched a co-branded card with Vishal Mega Mart.

Esprit

Esprit Privilege Card (EPC) has been launched in India as a variant of the company's loyalty card used in other countries. Any purchase at an Esprit store qualifies the customer to

enter the EPC Red Card, which grants cardholders a 10% discount at Esprit stores. Red Card holders also receive alerts to new products, special offers, and previews of seasonal collections.

Customers who make purchases of Rs.25,000 or more during a one-year period are upgraded to EPC Platinum Card membership. Benefits (Platinum level) include 10% off on every purchase made, invitations to VIP events, preview shows and special sales.

Loyalty Programs in India

1.5 million Customers since August 2006 have registered for i-Mint, an innovative co- branded loyalty program with partners like Airtel, Indian, ICICI, HPCL, and Lifestyle-International. In the program, cardholders earn points by shopping at any of the partner companies and will be made available to 5 million by 2007 end.

Similarly, the new Tata Credit Card offers cardholders the opportunity to earn and redeem loyalty points across 18 brand categories through one unit. The card, in association with the SBI card and MasterCard is a partnership of leading brands across all conceivable categories like airlines, books, departmental stores, durable goods, fuel, hospitality, telecom etc. The program is three tiered and features include: global acceptance, free insurance of up to Rs. 3 million, and zero-percent balance transfer charges for up to 75 days.

The above are just two examples of the new age loyalty programs emerging in the retail space in India. Loyalty programs will only get bigger and better with the anticipated entry of international retail giants.

Multi-partner coalition programs are the dominant loyalty model outside the U.S., and these two cases are signs of the accelerated pace of Indian marketing efforts in this arena.

Loyalty programs have been active in India since 1995, when British Airways launched the South Asia version of its Executive Club frequent-flyer program in India. That year, Shoppers’ Stop, launched its First Citizen Club (which has reached a headcount of 644,500 at the end of Q1-2007, one of India’s best known loyalty programs.)

Today, loyalty efforts have penetrated every major vertical: hospitality, travel, retail, telecoms, media outlets, and consumables.

The biggest challenge facing Indian marketers is the one facing marketers the world over: deriving actionable insight from customer data. While the more established sectors of fuel retail, travel are fairly established, most marketers still exist in a patchwork of segments with little knowledge of how to construct, administer and use loyalty programs.

The Indian loyalty industry is still in its infancy as most programs are very much standalone, points-driven or discounting schemes. They haven’t matured to the extent of providing differential treatment at all customer interface points. Without segmented databases, it’s difficult to benefit from a CRM program.