BOULDER, Colo. -- Wild Oats Markets here will kick off a card-based frequent-shopper program Dec. 1. Besides promoting customer loyalty, the natural-products retailer hopes its Wild Shopper card will provide the means for it to gather important data from its shoppers.
"We want to tailor this frequent-shopper program to learn more about our customer," said Jay Robinson, director of database marketing at Wild Oats. "For example, education is an important component of the natural-products business, so we'd like to gauge our shoppers' interest in receiving different types of educational material."
The retailer's recent upgrade of its point-of-sale system will allow it to "utilize intelligence from the item level," to learn what products members of the customer-loyalty program purchase, said Robinson.
Wild Oats has signed a letter of intent with Consumer Card Marketing, Braintree, Mass., a company that specializes in database marketing, "to work with their data-mining tools in order to analyze the frequent-shopper data," Robinson noted.
The retailer will offer the frequent-shopper program in its Boulder, Colo., stores at first. "We wanted to start in our core market, and expand at a measured pace," said Robinson. "We're optimistic that the program will expand." He did not give a specific time frame for the program's expansion. Wild Oats operates in 11 states and British Columbia.
The Wild Shopper card and key ring tags will use a bar code to identify members and record their transactions at the POS. "We may expand the card's application to check cashing or even to a co-branded credit card in the future," said Robinson.
The retailer's goal is to have at least 50% of its transactions on the Wild Shopper card, said Robinson. Wild Oats will use a variety of promotional techniques, including pricing incentives and cause-based continuity programs, to promote the customer-loyalty program.
Loyalty club members will be able to select a charity or community-based project they wish to donate to. Wild Oats will contribute to the charities based on a percentage of the member's purchases.
In addition, Wild Oats will offer a variety of educational materials to loyalty-club members. "We would love to enlist our shoppers' input on who they would like to receive information from," said Robinson.
"They will be able to change the mix at any point -- if they feel they're getting too much on organic foods, for example, and would like more information on nutritional supplements."
While Wild Oats will not share the names of loyalty-club members, it will offer manufacturers the opportunity to reach interested shopper segments on an aggregate basis, said Robinson.
"We've made this offer to manufacturers part of our 1998 integrated marketing program," he said. "They've been excited to see this type of effort coming from a retailer."
