BIG supermarket chains are fighting for customer loyalty.
Earlier this year, Sainsbury’s launched Nectar pricing, offering special discounts to cardholders in a bid to counter Tesco’s Clubcard pricing scheme.
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Earlier this year Sainsbury’s launched Nectar prices Credit: Alamy
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Sainsbury’s was trying to compete with Tesco’s Clubcard pricing schemeCredit: Alamy
We are investigating how the prices of Nectar and Clubcard cards agree
The chains are also fighting competition from discounters Aldi and Lidl and have introduced “price match” promotions on certain products.
But with all these competing offers, it can be difficult to determine what you’re really saving by shopping with your loyalty card at one store or another.
At the same time, analysis by Sun Money recently revealed that the range of own-brand products in some supermarkets is shrinking – forcing customers to buy more expensive brands.
James Flanders and Laura Purkess explore how Nectar and Clubcard prices stack up and other ways to cut costs.
HOW WE COMPARED COSTS
We looked at a basket of 12 everyday groceries in each supermarket to see if we could save more on our overall bill with Nectar or Clubcard.
We tried to choose similar products as much as possible, but there were some differences in package sizes between the two stores.
Often items were under promotional loyalty prices in one store but not in another – for example – Kingsmill soft white bread was on offer with Clubcard but not with Nectar, while Nectar had an offer on Tropicana orange juice which Clubcard did not.
For total amounts, where there was no separate loyalty agreement, we added the full price.
WHAT WE FOUND
A basket would normally cost £31.92 at Tesco, but with a Clubcard the bill drops to £23.54 — a saving of £8.38 a week or £435.76 a year.
At Sainsbury’s, 12 items were more expensive at £33.17, but with the Nectar card this dropped to £26.67. That’s a weekly saving of £6.50 or £338 a year.
Costs vary depending on the items each supermarket is promoting in a given week, so in another week Sainsbury’s might be cheaper.
However, most of the loyalty prices in both schemes were branded and to get the biggest savings, customers would have to forego member offers and choose the cheapest own-brand alternative instead.
In doing so we discovered that our baskets cost a very similar amount in both supermarkets – £18.06 at Tesco and £18.25 at Sainsbury’s.
That’s a saving of £5.48 a week, or £284.96 a year, compared to Clubcard prices. Or a saving of £8.42 per week or £437.84 per year, compared to Nectar prices.
We often found promotions where Tesco and Sainsbury’s price match Aldi prices offered greater savings than loyalty offers.
WHY STORES WANT OUR DATA
LOYALTY cards aren’t just about getting customers to stick with one store, says Adam Leyland, editor-in-chief of The Grocer Magazine.
He said: “Data is extremely valuable for supermarkets. It helps them understand their customers’ likes and dislikes in great detail, so they can tailor offers.”
But Jake Moore, a data expert at cyber security firm ESET, warned: “They could potentially use that data to increase prices based on trends in what we’re buying.”
A Tesco spokesman said: “We remain absolutely focused on delivering great value.
“Our industry-leading combination of Clubcard prices, Aldi Price Match and 1,000s of price-locking products with everyday low prices means we’re the most competitive ever.”
A Sainsbury’s spokesman said the store had increased its Aldi Price Match range to 400 products this week.
He added: “We have rebranded our own brands within the Stamford Street range to help our customers more easily find our best value products in store and online.”
CENTER PARCS ‘FREE’ VACATION SCAM ALERT
THOUSANDS of families have been conned into taking part in a bogus competition offering free holidays to Center Parcs.
A Facebook page called Center Parcs Elveden Forest, which used the company’s logo, posted a number of offers to win a holiday at the resort by liking and sharing posts.
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Families tricked into entering fake Center Parcs competitionCredit: Alamy
Center Parcs confirmed it had nothing to do with the page or “share”, which had been liked and shared by thousands by the time Sun Money contacted Facebook and it was taken down this week.
One post, commented on by 3,400 users, said: “Last cancellation on our Waterside cottage for September, as already paid for, before 11pm on Wednesday HlT as WlN free.”
One woman posted on the site that she hoped to take her grandchildren for the first time, while another said she was desperate to treat a terminally ill relative.
But entering the contest wasn’t as simple as hitting “like.”
As soon as someone commented on the post, a notification would pop up saying they had successfully entered the second phase of the Center Parcs free giveaway, with a one in ten chance of winning.
Then there was a series of pop-ups and questions that the participants had to fill out.
They were asked for contact information and other personal information about their online shopping habits, whether they owned a house, and how many cars their household owned.
Finally, users were shown a number of different free trial offers that they had to sign up for in order to complete entry – for shaving kit subscriptions, lottery games and recipe boxes.
Participants were told they had to sign more than 20 offers to be entered into a draw to win a £1,000 holiday to Center Parcs – a very different proposition to the original post.
As well as collecting information that could be sold to marketing companies and signing participants up for trial subscriptions that they might forget to cancel, experts warn that the data collected could be used for impersonation fraud.
Harriet Cooke
Categories: Optical Illusion
Source: newstars.edu.vn