Customer retention is important as ever, and both retailers and brands are figuring out new ways to develop shopper loyalty.

At Groceryshop 2022, held Sept. 19-22 in Las Vegas, NV, Ken Fenyo, president of Research & Advisory at Coresight Research, detailed the state of the grocery loyalty program, and spoke about which programs are succeeding and why. Fenyo also hosted a panel on building consumer loyalty that featured Michael McGowan, SVP of insights & loyalty at 84.51°, who spoke about Kroger’s new Boost program.

“Based on our research about 15% of people say they increase their spend when they join a loyalty program, and only a much smaller percentage say they decrease it,” said Fenyo. “Paid programs are exploding in popularity. Within the grocery, food, mass and drug space, half of the top 10 programs are paid programs: Amazon Prime, Costco membership, Sam’s Club… Walmart+ and Kroger Boost are also on the list. But that’s a big change. Many of these programs didn’t exist a few years ago.”

When it comes to tactics, Fenyo pointed out a few techniques that retailers are using to attract customers through their loyalty programs. He cited retailers like Walmart, Albertsons and CVS as having programs that offer experimental benefits like streaming service benefits, personalizable free items and earning points by doing healthy activities, respectively.

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