For once Tesco Clubcard – often hailed as being at the cutting edge of customer strategies – seems to have some catching up to do after new figures claimed that only 4% of customers have its mobile app.
By comparison, some 40% of Nectar card holders have already downloaded the mobile app for their loyalty card.
The figures, released in a report by Juniper Research into the burgeoning mobile app market, are likely to raise serious questions about Tesco’s ability to keep the Clubcard relevant.
Under former chief Philip Clarke, Tesco ploughed huge resources into new technology, but this has been scaled back since Dave Lewis took charge.
The retailer has already ditched the Hudl tablet, as well as plans to launch a Tesco smartphone. Meanwhile, trials of Tesco’s digital wallet also seem to have ground to a halt as Lewis goes back to basics in his turnaround plan.
According to Juniper, globally 1.4 billion loyalty cards are mobile-only or integrated into mobile apps; it forecasts this will rise to 3 billion by 2020.
But Dr Windsor Holden, author of the research, says those retailers which do not offer mobile integration of their loyalty schemes are likely to have “far lower levels of visibility on consumer activity”.
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