Food Lion Takes Shop & Earn Program Chainwide

Shop & Earn, the Food Lion program that incentivizes shoppers to earn discounts via category spending thresholds, has been rolled out chainwide after a successful test in two market areas last year.

The program works in tandem with the chain’s MVP loyalty card. Shoppers opting into the program are provided with offers based on their shopping history, and have until the last day of each calendar month to reach thresholds that trigger discounts redeemable on their next shopping trip. Shoppers can track progress toward their goals online or through the Food Lion app, providing a gamified experience for participants. Food Lion officials said that aspect proved popular with shoppers in test markets of Raleigh and Greensboro, N.C., while helping Food Lion to build baskets and frequency.

"Shop & Earn is a unique loyalty program that puts our customers in charge of their savings," Deborah Sabo, SVP of marketing at Food Lion, said in a release. "The more our customers shop, the more they will save. Offers are targeted to customers based on their specific purchases, fueling a program with nearly endless savings opportunities.”

The program also gives Food Lion the potential to utilize incentives to better guide shoppers through the store. A customer who tends to buy less meat, for example, could be offered a larger incentive to shop that department than a customer who buys meat from Food Lion more often—but there are other ways to engineer both the size of the reward and the spending levels required to trigger them.

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To kick off the program, Food Lion said it would donate to local food banks through Feeding America for every Shop & Earn activation.

Salisbury, N.C.-based Food Lion, a brand of Ahold Delhaize USA, operates more than 1,000 stores in 10 states.