The news comes as the CMA is finally set to kick off a review of supermarket loyalty schemes in January 2024, after announcing it in the fall 2023, which will centre around only offering promotional prices to customers who sign up to their loyalty cards.
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GLOCMA, the UK’s watchdog, continues to probes Sainsbury’s and Tesco’s loyalty schemes for price cuts for loyalty shoppers.
The probe started in November 2023, when the regulator said that the recent trend of big discounts or price cuts for members may be restricting competition and disadvantaging those outside the schemes.
Sainsbury’s started offering special discounts for its Nectar card holder in April 2023. Co-op and Tesco also brough members’ pricing on some products. Lidl, which launched a loyalty scheme in 2020 and updated in 2022 with featres allowing shoppers had to spend more to get the top level of discounts.
According to The Grocer, Tesco has more than 8,000 products that are cheaper for holders of its Clubcard, while Sainsbury’s has about 6,000 items in its Nectar scheme. A typical large supermarket would stock more than 20,000 products.
Recently, Simon Roberts, Sainsbury’s CEO, has defended its loyalty scheme, amid accusations that supermarkets make savings appear better than they are.
Roberts said: “We have very clear rules about what a price is, what it is before it comes down to being a Nectar Price, and we’re very consistent about how we do that.”
Pressed on whether there were plans for the business to bring Nectar Prices to local convenience stores, the Sainsbury’s CEO said it prioritised supermarkets and online since the prices were about “giving customers on their basket and trolley shops the biggest savings that we can”.
The news comes as the CMA is finally set to kick off a review of supermarket loyalty schemes in January 2024, after announcing it in the fall 2023, which will centre around only offering promotional prices to customers who sign up to their loyalty cards.
Roberts said that Sainsbury’s stellar Christmas, where like-for-like sales jumped 7.4% excluding fuel, had been “powered by Nectar Prices”.
Meanwhile, Roberts said that disruption in the Red Sea, caused by cargo vehicles having to reroute due to attacks on vessels, meant journeys were taking 10 to 14 days longer.
Source: The Grocer, Retail Gazette, Sainsbury’s.
