Insider's Tip: Judi Lapin
This week’s tip comes to us from Judi Lapin, President, Lapin Consulting Group:
‘Show the Love through Loyalty Programs’
“Nothing could be more important or more challenging to a center’s brand strategy in a difficult economic environment than maintaining market share. And that means focusing on your loyal core shoppers more than ever before.
As an ICSC Trustee, I serve as co-chair for what will be a quarterly online research study conducted by ICSC across the US and Canada to gain insight into the changes in consumer behavior and attitude over the past year and going forward.
Of the many interesting findings released just this week is that approximately half of the 2,500 consumers surveyed belong to a loyalty or rewards program for a retailer or shopping center. Participants stated their main reason for belonging to a rewards program is the special discounts given to members or rewards earned for purchases. Shoppers said that gifts, freebies, advanced notice of sales and special access for members are far less important to them. But the surprising data is that the majority of these loyalty club members belong only to retailer’s loyalty programs with only 2% belonging to a similar shopping center program. With shoppers already in the know on how these programs work, shopping centers of all shapes and sizes have a huge opportunity to jump into the loyalty program arena. If you have a website you can have a loyalty program.”
Want to know more?
Call Judi at (949) 261-117, ext. 101 or email her at jlapin@lapincg.com.
Learn more about Lapin Consulting Group, branding specialists for retail real estate, at www.lapincg.com.
