Supermarket loyalty cards are the next weapon

It would appear that the humble supermarket loyalty card could be the next weapon to be used by the likes of Sainsbury's, Tesco and other UK retailers as the battle to attract the attention and the money of consumers continues to grow. Sainsbury's has today increased the number of nectar points available to loyalty cardholders after Tesco effectively doubled the number of bonus points available to its own loyalty cardholders.

Experts are predicting that low food price inflation will see the major retailers battling it out over the next 12 months with consumers set to benefit from not only loyalty bonus points but reduced prices. However, there are also concerns that this will place undue pressure on supermarket suppliers who in many cases are working on wafer thin margins and depend on large volumes to survive. This is the knock-on effect which the power of the supermarket sector has over the UK economy and one which in the past has shown to be very brutal.

It will be interesting to see how other retailers respond to the Sainsbury's and Tesco loyalty card offer improvements and ultimately how these will impact upon future profitability and future turnover.