Supermarket chain Waitrose has revealed plans to allow shoppers to customise offers on their food and drink purchases, as part of a scheme described as “a worldwide first”.
The high-end retailer’s Pick Your Own Offers initiative allows consumers with a Waitrose loyalty card to pick ten products that they purchase on a regular basis. They will then receive a 20% discount, tied in to their loyalty card, when they shop with Waitrose online or in store.
The promotion covers nearly a thousand products in total, from staple foods such as bread, milk and fruits and vegetables to more indulgent items. The customer’s initial selection will be fixed for a set period of time, which looks set to be two or three months.
The retailer’s loyalty card scheme, MyWaitrose, currently has more than 5m subscribers, with 70% of purchases being made using a MyWaitrose card. The promotion will not affect existing MyWaitrose benefits or offers.
Waitrose managing director Mark Price said: “This is a ground-breaking move, giving customers the power to choose the offers they want. We know from the success of MyWaitrose that customers like straightforward deals they can trust that are relevant to them. Pick Your Own Offers goes one step further by putting them in control.
“Different forms of personalised marketing have been around since the 1990s, but we’re introducing mass customisation in grocery. Customers can choose what’s valuable to them when they shop for groceries. We really are giving power to the consumer.”
The move will be seen by analysts as an attempt to enhance Waitrose’s competitiveness against the blossoming discount retailers. The company’s brand price match, which guarantees the cost of branded products against Tesco, had previously been introduced as an attempt to broaden the appeal of the retailer’s premium offering.
In March, we reported that Waitrose and discount supermarket chain Aldi were the two fastest growing retailers in the UK, according to a new study. OC&C Strategy Consultants found that the German retailer, which beat Waitrose to the top spot, had experienced average year-on-year revenue growth of £1.2bn.
With 16 of the 20 companies featured in the list holding either a premium-end or value position, the research highlighted the increasingly polarised nature of the UK’s grocery sector.
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