Consumers eager to earn loyalty rewards for m-commerce activities

Tuesday, February 16, 2016 - 14:27 by Paul Tissington

People who carry out safe shopping online from their smartphones are keen to pick up loyalty points and other rewards from retailers, a survey conducted by Apadmi has revealed.

While loyalty points are commonly available in-store across the UK, they are not as widely used online. And with mobile shopping likely to overtake desktop-based purchases in the coming years, catering to the needs of m-commerce users is as sensible tactic for retailers to pursue.

The capabilities of smartphones also give retailers inventive new ways to award loyalty points for both online and in-store actions. For example, almost a third of those questioned in the study said that they would be willing to let an app track their location as they browse items at bricks and mortar outlets in return for rewards.

Half of respondents said that they are already signed up to more than one form of loyalty scheme, with a similar proportion saying that they regularly make use of the points they earn, redeeming them to get rewards, such as money off future purchases.

Just a fifth of consumers who own a smartphone said that they had made use of loyalty points via their mobile device, suggesting that there is a gap in the market which retailers could exploit successfully.

Of course, there is evidence that millennial shoppers are both more likely to carry out safe shopping online from a smartphone than older people, but also less likely to remain loyal to a particular brand or outlet.

This means that there should be even more reason for retailers to incentivise shoppers via loyalty schemes, since it could help to get more m-commerce users returning to sites and apps to make purchases, rather than seeing them stolen by a rival outlet.