Joint modeling of effects of customer tier program on customer purchase duration and purchase amount

Nowadays, many supermarkets implement a customer tier program to increase their profits because it is expected to raise customers' willingness to purchase by setting thresholds. However, designing an appropriate program is difficult because each customer's heterogeneous purchase behavior is difficult to capture. Therefore, we simultaneously modeled purchase frequency and amount through a marked point process approach while considering program effects and customer characteristics. The results clarified that the points pressure effect was particularly strong among customers who originally visited the store infrequently and had not attained the threshold set up in the customer tier program many times in the past. In addition, we found that the three-tier customer tier program was superior to the two-tier program with respect to the operating income in supermarkets.     

“It's nice to get a wee treat if you've had a bad week”: Consumer motivations in retail loyalty scheme points redemption

Research into loyalty schemes focuses primarily on business (strategy) rather than consumer perspectives. This paper investigates consumer motivations in retail loyalty scheme points redemption, through a qualitative study of participants in a major UK retail loyalty scheme. Academic research tends to neglect investigation of points redemption, despite its probable significance to consumers and certain value to businesses. The research identifies planned behavior towards redemption goals, plus interruptions by various circumstances and events. Self-gifting for reward and/or therapy purposes is common. Redemption activities have positive implications for consumer perceptions of the scheme and the retailer and appear to enhance future purchasing behavior. From these findings, this paper draws implications for theory and practice.     

Loyalty program structure and consumers' perceptions of status: Feeling special in a grocery store?

Loyalty programs are business practices increasingly pursued by companies in order to achieve customer loyalty. Recent studies have focused on the relationship between loyalty program structures (i.e., number and size of hierarchical tiers) and status levels (i.e., exclusivity) perceived by members. The current study examines two potential moderators of this relationship between program structure and perceived status. Specifically, the aim of our research was to test whether loyalty program structure affects status perceptions in more and less exclusive industries, and among consumers with more and less positive attitudes toward loyalty programs.An experimental design based on different scenarios was used. Two industries and three loyalty program structures were examined. In the airline industry, which is higher in perceived exclusivity, perceived status in the top tier of the loyalty program increased as the number of customers in the top tier decreased and as the number of tiers increased. Notably, however, loyalty program structure had no effect on perceived status in the supermarket industry, which is lower in perceived exclusivity. Moreover, even in the airline industry, status effects were only observed among respondents with a positive attitude toward loyalty programs. Those with neutral or negative attitudes toward loyalty programs were unaffected by the structure of the loyalty program. Thus, the effect of loyalty program structure on consumers' perceived status varied systematically across industries and across individuals.