Asda: Rewards Apps, Customer Incentives & What you should do next
As I write this, I’ve just opened my Asda Rewards app, which I downloaded at Christmas last year for research purposes given our bread and butter at Redfish Group is loyalty schemes. To my surprise, I have £23.14 sat in my “Cashpot”. I wouldn’t say I was a regular ‘Asda Shopper’, and I cashed in an £8 voucher not too long back, so to have accumulated such a figure is a welcome advantage.
Compare that to other supermarkets, no one else is giving me a monetary figure that high that I can change into a voucher and walk in to spend tomorrow. Sure, I’m sent the coupons through from M&S monthly, and we collect Tesco Clubcard points on our petrol as well as take advantage of Tesco Clubcard prices regularly, but we still tend to do the majority of our ‘big shops’ over at Aldi.
With no loyalty scheme in place there, it’s purely because of the reputation as the ‘cheapest’ place to go. But with inflation, is that really the case anymore? As the supermarket prices begin to align even closer than ever, maybe a loyalty scheme can be the thing to make us jump ship.
Asda Rewards App: One year on
Historically, Asda was the place to go for a ‘cheap’ shopping experience. If we remember back to the TV adverts with the catchy ‘That’s Asda Price’ slogan and the tapping of the back pocket, Asda was the place for your ‘big shop’ and always came out as the lowest basket price of the ‘Big Six’ before the likes of Aldi and Lidl hit the UK.
Asda were a bit later to the party when it came to Rewards, but in its first year since launching their loyalty app in September 2022, more than seven million customers have downloaded it, scanned their barcode at the till point and have earned over £200m in their Cashpots, which they can use to reduce their grocery bills.
To celebrate their first anniversary, Asda gave away £15m to customers throughout September through a ‘Spin the Wheel’ game in its Rewards app, giving customers a guaranteed Cashpot bonus every time they ‘spin’ during September. All customers had to do was spend £5 or more in-store, scan their Rewards app and they were granted a spin of the wheel. Depending on where the wheel landed, 50p, £1, £5 or £100 was added to their Cashpots.
Asda’s Rewards app seems to have it all. It has the ease of use that is craved by customers, with its ‘Pounds, not points’ slogan. Customers get instant gratitude for their loyalty, by seeing that Cashpot rise after every shop, rather than having to wait for a voucher to be sent to them in a few months’ time.
So how does the Asda Rewards App work and why should you take it onboard when looking at your own loyalty offering?
Missions
Completing missions is the main way to add to your Cashpot within the Asda Rewards app. These missions seem to vary month on month, and are usually multibuys, prompting the customer to spend more to gain more. Some examples of these missions include:
Get Party Ready Bonus
- Buy any 3 L’Oreal items to get £1.50 in your cashpot
November Super Shopper
- Shop 4 times between 1st> – 26th of November to get £10 in your cashpot
Meat & Fish Bonus
- Spend £20 on meat, fish & poultry to get £2 in your cashpot
Christmas Cards Bonus
- Spend £10 on single Christmas Cards and Christmas Money Wallets to get £2 in your Cashpot.
As you can see from the examples, creating time-sensitive actions acts as an incentive for repeat visits from the customer, who may not have planned to come in to shop so many times, but do to gain the bonus. The rewards app also syncs with the Asda shopping app, meaning any online click & collect or delivery shops are automatically ‘scanned’.
Star Products
Star products are highlighted within the Asda shopping app and on the shelves in Asda stores. Choosing a star product gives you 10% back into your cashpot, prompting customers to choose that product over a different brand for instance.
Looking at the current offers within the ‘Star Products’ section of the app, there are a huge range of products to suit every shopper, from cleaning products and toiletries, to food cupboard essentials and treats.
There are also ‘Super Stars’ which give back even more. At the minute, a box of Cool Mint Matchmakers (a Christmas essential) gives you 50p in your cashpot. Another that caught my eye was only available in a small amount of Asda stores and for a limited time only, but for those Christmas shopping, a Shark FlexStyle 4-in-1 Air Styler & Hair Dryer gives you £40.50 back into your cashpot.
It’s a great concept for several reasons. Customers are getting a monetary vs points-based discount essentially on a product, which shoppers are looking out for more and more, it is not about heavy discounting it is about selective discounting and ultimately that monetary saving is still going to be spent in-store at Asda rather than with a competitor, A win-win for both the company and the consumer.
Newly announced Coupons
The latest offering to Asda Rewards app holders is Coupons, launched this week. M&S are one supermarket who do coupons particularly well, as they personalise these to the customer and their shopping habits. If there is a trend with a customer who particularly likes the bakery section, a coupon can be added to their app for 50p off a loaf next time they visit. I’ve been known to get very excited over a free bag of Percy Pigs in the M&S app too!
These coupons are made to surprise and delight the customer. That free bag of Percy Pigs resulted in a repeat purchase and leaving with a full basket that I didn’t necessarily need but picked up when visiting the store to use my Percy Pig voucher.
These coupons are also time-sensitive. They have to be used by a certain date. If you don’t use it, you lose it, resulting in that push to come in-store for an extra visit that you wouldn’t usually have done.
The new coupons at Asda can be redeemed instantly either in-store or online. In store, the coupons are available to scan in your wallet within the app. If shopping online, the coupons are automatically applied.
Whether these coupons are personalised to customer spending habits or implemented across the board is yet to be seen. Currently I have:
- A day left to get £4 off when I spend £20 on womenswear
- 4 days left to get £4 off when I spend £20 on Christmas lights, trees and decorations
- 25 days left to get £1 off any Toblerone
- 5 days to get £1 off when I spend £6 on hot beverages and sugar
- 5 days left to save 75p when I spend £3 on food accessories, which according to the picture next to it is the likes of tin foil, cling film and sandwich bags.
Are any of these coupons enough of an incentive for me to rush into store? Possibly the Christmas decorations would be if I was in the market to buy a fair few to add to the collection this year. That to me might become a free box of baubles for example. But 75p off cling film would probably be seen as just a nice extra if I was doing an online shop, rather than an incentive to come into store just for that one item.
As the coupons progress, it will be great to see if they start to reflect my shopping habits and items that we regularly purchase.
What else does the Asda Rewards app offer?
Another added benefit and incentive to shop at Asda is the acceptance of the Blue Light Card. Blue Light Discount is offered to those working in emergency services and the NHS. Within the app, customers can link their blue light card to Asda Rewards and get additional benefits when it is scanned in-store.
Having all of these different avenues and ways of shopping and earning within the app means Asda customers have everything they need in one place. Asda can send every customer notifications through the app to let them know about any new star products or incentives too.
Notifications are essentially free to send and will be seen by almost every customer. Even if the notification is not of interest, customers still need to see it to swipe it away, keeping the Asda brand (or your brand, should you choose to launch a Rewards app!) at the forefront of their mind.
Interested in reigniting your loyalty scheme?
At Redfish Group, we’re experts in loyalty and rewards and have developed our own white label loyalty app that will transform your loyalty scheme, is tailored around your brand and has lots of smart way ways of increasing purchase frequency in your store throughout the year.
We could talk for hours about everything we know about loyalty schemes, talking you through results that we have achieved for our clients and their offerings. It would be great to discuss your brand and how we can help you get the most from your rewards too.
If you’re looking to expand your loyalty offering in 2024, now is the perfect time to discuss it and get a plan in place, to hit the ground running in the new year.
Contact us via our website and leave us a message with an overview of where you currently are and your aims for the next year, or give us a call on 01482 871846 to set up a demo of our customer data platform, Responseworks and talk about your options with our MD and senior marketing team.
