BrandLoyalty | Case study | Lowes Foods Kitchen Kaboodle & vivo

Turning participants into ambassadors

Lowes Foods breaks away from the couponing culture by offering a better digital shopping experience

Lowes Foods is a relatively young, family-owned grocery store chain based in North Carolina USA. It is growing rapidly, specialises in truly local, homegrown products and is very focused on delivering its shoppers the most pleasant experience. In October 2016, Lowes Foods launched its first-ever digital loyalty programme in collaboration with BrandLoyalty and IceMobile. Together we created the successful recipe for the first digital loyalty programme in the USA: Lowes Foods My Kaboodle.

Shopper experience should always be the number one priority

The retailer always wanted to prioritise shopper experience, and therefore undertook several changes with the aim of attracting new shoppers. To enhance the shopper experience and accelerate growth, Lowes rebranded its stores and looked for new ways to build loyalty with their shoppers. They decided to collaborate with BrandLoyalty to try an innovative new way to accelerate the growth of its supermarket chain and to build a stronger long-term relationship with their shoppers.

Taking the leap to digital

Lowes Foods was therefore looking for ways to reward those shoppers who came into its stores week in, week out to buy their groceries. Over 16 weeks, customers could save for highly discounted rewards from vivo | Villeroy & Boch Group. But this wasn’t just your normal paper stamp-based programme, as Lowes decided to offer its shoppers a digital alternative – the first of its kind in North America. The digital rewards and innovative experience positively surprised shoppers used to the traditional American coupon collection culture.

Collecting together drives success

The collecting functionality became one of the biggest driving forces for the programme’s success. The My Kaboodle app also offered a ‘Collect Together’ function. It was really easy: by connecting your card number with your friend’s card, you could both see the combined stamps balance in the app and/or website after every transaction. Thanks to this functionality, collectors could easily give extra stamps to friends and acquaintances.

BrandLoyalty offered us a unique take on a well-known continuity concept. We particularly liked their data-driven approach to tailor the offering to our desired customers segment, their turn-key & full-service execution support, and their innovative on-card and mobile stamp solution. With this combination, we created a strong customer attraction with better and more relevant offers to our most loyal guests. Jason Ramsey, VP Center Store, Lowes Foods

'Pushing' shoppers into stores

'Push’ notifications or messages were sent to My Kaboodle app users to remind them of the stamp totals, as well as to ask for confirmation about personal information that perhaps needed to be updated in the Lowes CRM system. This one-to-one communication helped create a more personal connection with its shoppers.

When a shopper scanned their Lowes Fresh Rewards card, the cash register knew if they were a physical or digital stamp collector. The cashier could then hand out the stamps to physical shoppers or could update their balance in real time. Easier for the cashier and easier for the shopper.

So what's next?

Since agility is key to constantly improving programmes for shoppers, the data Lowes Foods collected from the My Kaboodle programme was analysed and leveraged to enhance a second digital programme, which launched in September 2017. It built on the same app and tactics as the first, offering loyal shoppers the chance to assemble an entire collection of vivo | Villeroy & Boch group cookware via the Lowes Fresh Rewards loyalty card.

Lowes Foods recently finished its third My Kaboodle programme. Until January 13th 2019, loyal shoppers could extend their vivo | Villeroy & Boch collection with high-quality glassware.

About Lowes Foods

Lowes Foods is a family-owned grocer, founded in 1954 and based in North Carolina with 97 stores. It is growing rapidly and specialises in local, homegrown products. In October 2016, Lowes Foods launched its first-ever digital, short-term loyalty programme: Lowes Foods Kitchen Kaboodle ran for 18 weeks in 75 Lowes Foods stores across North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.

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