Loyalty Programs

Total spending on gift cards is expected to reach $31.74 billion, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF). Gift cards have been the most requested holiday item eight years in a row. The NRF said total spending on gift cards has increased 83 percent since 2003, when it began tracking people's intentions to give the cards as holiday presents.

Sears will provide members of its Shop Your Way loyalty program access to many Black Friday deals one full week before Thanksgiving, on Sears.com from 6 p.m. on Nov. 20 until 11:59 p.m. (CT) on Nov. 21. During this online member-exclusive pre-sale event, members can log on to their Shop Your Way account during the sale to access the deals. On Thanksgiving Day, Sears stores will open at 6 p.m. with more than 1,000 doorbuster deals on the most popular gifts of the season, through 1 p.m. local time on Black Friday.

On Monday, Kohl's unveiled Yes2You Rewards nationwide-a brand-new engaging loyalty program developed to further-connect with each customer and enhance their shopping experience in stores and online.  The leading retailer has tested several different methods of the program for the past two years, with over 10 million members signing up just during the trial period-proving to Kohl's that the newly-launched program should be a success among customers. The

Christmas is still more than three months away, but the game is already on in the toy aisle with both Wal-Mart and Toys"R"Us publishing some of their holiday toy lists Wednesday. Winning the game for Toys"R"Us isn't just about picking the hit product, it's also about proving there's viable room for it to exist and win as a specialty toy retailer, as other specialty chains from Best Buy to Barnes & Noble also guard their respective foothold against rivals from Wal-Mart to Amazon.com. 

GameStop announced it will allow consumers to exchange unwanted gift cards for a GameStop e-gift card via a program powered by gift card exchange platform Cardpool. To participate, users fill out their gift card information on GameStop's website by selecting the retail store it's for, entering a card number, and the pin (if it's available). Once the information is verified, a GameStop gift card will be mailed to them. From there, they can use the card at the more than 4,400 GameStop store locations nationwide or online.

Last year, 61 percent of retailers cited customer retention as their greatest obstacle. It's easy to view e-commerce innovations as the enemy when a once-faithful customer base abandons brand loyalty in favor of the cheaper or faster option. But these challenges offer retailers opportunities to take a hard look at existing loyalty programs and business strategies to make updates that better suit the changing behaviors of their target markets. Here are five methods retailers can use to grow customer loyalty in today's digital age:

Gap's pay pledge has gotten the attention of job seekers. After announcing plans in February to increase hourly wages to $10 by 2015, employment applications at the Gap and Old Navy chains have surged by at least 10 percent from a year earlier, the San Francisco-based company said. The clothing seller has seen applications increase across all of its brands — including Banana Republic and Athleta — though the effect has been especially striking at the lower-end Old Navy chain, where the number of job seekers had been declining. 

A recent Bloomberg poll suggests that most Target customers are willing to forgive the company for its massive data breach. The theft of data concerning more than 40 million payment transactions did hurt the company's reputation, as evidenced by a drop in sales in the fourth quarter, as well as the Congressional hearings and flood of lawsuits. However, the poll taken in early May showed that 85 percent of customers expect to shop about the same amount at Target over the next year. Only about 7 percent planned to reduce spending at Target in that period.

We all know that loyalty programs are popular with customers, but when it comes to why a customer shops with a particular brand, the loyalty program is actually fairly far down the list of reasons for why a customer engages. A recent COLLOQUY survey of more than 3,000 consumers indicates that loyalty programs aren't core influencers of shopping behavior when compared with location, experience and customer service. The consumers ranked loyalty programs at the bottom of the list of shopping-decision criteria. These numbers shouldn't be seen as a failing of loyalty marketing as an engagement vehicle.

Let's say your company is ahead of the technology curve, employing mobile point-of-sale systems, customer relationship management software, the latest financial reporting software, e- and m-commerce applications and supply chain tracking. Great! But what sort of exposure are you looking at when the performance of that technology fails to meet organizational or, far worse, customer expectations?