Lidl's loyalty program can increase the discount and campaign days of the giants of Suomen Ruokakaupa.
Lidl's The loyalty program launched at the turn of the year can at best increase competition in the Finnish grocery store, says a trade industry analyst Arhi Kivilahti from Ada Insights.
Kivilahti says that Prisma and Lidl of the S group have traditionally followed each other in pricing, and the renewal of the loyalty program has certainly been noted.
“You could imagine that in Vallila [SOK:n pääkonttorilla] have read the opening of Lidl with a magnifying glass,” says Kivilahti.
Lidl published its new loyalty program at the beginning of the year. HS compared the bonus programs of Lidl, S-group and K-group in its extensive article on Wednesday.
Based on the comparison, Lidl is the most generous of the stores' bonus programs. For example, Lidl pays its regular customers bonuses of 100 euros for monthly purchases of 1,000 euros. With corresponding monthly purchases, the S group remains at 50 euros and the K group at 27.5 euros.
Kivilahti thinks the program is too expensive for Lidl.
“I would be positively surprised if Lidl's return percentages are the same a year from now,” Kivilahti said in the comparison.
Read the comparison in more detail from here.
Read more: Lidl pays the biggest bonuses, but according to the expert, the advantage is already too big
Kivilahti does not believe that the S group would change how much the S group pays for purchase credits, but for example different or more campaign days might be in the offing.
“Up until now, the Plussa system has not matched the strong return percentages of the S benefit card. It's hard to imagine what Kesko's equivalent would be.”
In Kesko and in the S group, Lidl's move does not seem to have caused sudden measures. Regarding both, HS is told that the companies are constantly mapping their customers' needs and developing their loyalty programs accordingly.
S group's account director Heini Dahlström says that competition for customers through loyalty programs is quite welcome.
“It pushes us to develop our operations even better to meet the needs of our customer owners. But we do believe in our own, 30-year-old bonus program. We make deliberate changes based on the feedback we receive from our customers,” he says.
The S Group paid a record 414 million euros in bonuses in 2022. According to the S group, the number of bonuses it pays out to its customers has increased almost 15-fold since 1994.
According to the store, last year's bonuses are even higher, but it will not reveal the exact amount until its earnings release in mid-February.
In Kesko One answer to the competition is the price of the shopping basket, which customers also pay a lot of attention to.
“One way is to bring products into this offer and advantage game and thereby ensure that we have good products available at a good price. These include not only promotional products, but also own brand products and red-labeled items. We have to make sure that we have affordable daily products, but the price level is monitored all the time. It's not a sudden change, but a continuous operation,” says Kesko's director of customer information Minna Vakkilainen.
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