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EDITORIAL How customer loyalty is helping retailers navigate challenging times

How are successful retailers navigating challenging times? Image: De Visu/Shutterstock

How are successful retailers navigating challenging times? Image: De Visu/Shutterstock

In today’s InternetRetailing newsletter we’re reflecting on some of the factors that are helping retailers to navigate a a cost-of-living crisis. Pets at Home counts both VIP customer numbers and VIP customer spending among its key performance indicators (KPIs) and in today’s newsletter we’re reporting on how both are rising – along with subscriptions and membership of its Puppies and Kittens Club. 

Meanwhile, Wickes has seen a double-digit rise in fourth quarter sales, mostly as shoppers opt for  the retailer to ‘do it for me’ rather than ‘do it yourself’. In part that’s down to an expansion in its installation teams with a focus on getting through high order books that built up during the pandemic. 

Bensons for Beds reports a 41% rise in online sales in its latest quarter after a year of investing in online, in-store and in a new customer data platform as it looks to both win new customers and understand how existing customers buy – and, implicit to that, want to buy – across channels. 

All are useful examples of how retailers are successfully fostering customer loyalty in otherwise challenging times. Customer loyalty is the focus of today’s final piece in our annual series of predictions, which ends on the last day of January. In it, industry figures reflect on the role of loyalty programmes, personalisation and subscriptions in making it more likely that customers will continue to buy from a retailer or brand. 

Today we’re also reporting as Asos works with Secret Sales to clear excess stock as the UK’s 

Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) considers whether Farfetch’s plan to take a stake in Richemont ecommerce business YNAP – and vice versa – amounts to a merger that might reduce competition in the UK market and as JD Sports informs the 10m customers whose data may have been compromised following a cyber incident. 

In today’s guest comment, Jordan Lawrence of Volt considers retailers can best use open banking.

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