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Shoppers Stop plans to tapinto possible synergies between its loyalty card members and the fan base on social media to create better business opportunities in the future. Considering that almost 70 per cent of the revenue is generated from the 2.7 million loyalty card members, the Mumbai-based retailer is exploring the possibility of getting more converts from the 4 million fans on Facebook.
“We have found that among the 2.7 million loyalty members, almost 50 per cent have become our fans on facebook. There is an overlap between the two mediums and this will allow us to observe the purchase patterns of our customers even better,” says Vinay Bhatia, Customer Care Associate and Senior Vice President – Marketing and Loyalty, Shoppers Stop.
In spite of the slowdown, Shoppers Stop claims its loyalty card membership base has been growing between 15 and 18 per cent with the addition of 4 lakh members every year. With a base of 2.7 million members already, the 15-year-old loyalty programme under the name of First Citizen is based on a membership charge of Rs 300.
“Unlike other retailers who give away free loyalty cards, we have decided to charge our customers as we want only those members who are serious about the programmes. Despite this charge, we have been adding 4 lakh members every year,” added Bhatia.
At the same time, the fan base on social media has been increasing with 4 million fans on Facebook today. “As we see growth opportunities on both these platforms, we would like to leverage it to convert more fans into becoming loyalty members. There is cross promotion happening between social media and the loyalty programme and we see this as one of biggest business opportunities,” says Kumar Subramaniam, Executive Vice-President and Head of Contract Mumbai. i-Contract, the digital division of Contract is handling the Shopper’s Stop account.
Social media is also expected to understand the shopping habits of consumers better than a loyalty card. “The loyalty card is to understand the purchase made by the customer at the transaction level while through social media we can figure out the mind of the consumer by studying the non-purchase related behaviour. This can reflect in the business in the long term,” Bhatia said. Presence on social media is also expected to drive e-commerce for Shoppers Stop which is still at a nascent stage.
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