Postcards from Perkistan

Perkler staff got to go on a field trip the other day and the outcomes were really interesting. Graham and Linh headed off to one of our city’s largest malls (our hometown of Canberra is just a few hundred thousand people but we’ve always had a pretty good mall culture going back to the 70’s).

The boys visited every store in the centre asking about their loyalty programs and what they offer consumers. They visited everything from huge national and global brands right down to the local food court proprietors.

Considering we already have well over a thousand programs in the Perkolator, the results were interesting.

49 new brands were entered into the Perkolator, with 46 that they found already in our database. So in a mall of around 200 stores 95 had information in store about their programs. 

The most interesting thing is that of the programs we already had in our database 40 programs had to be modified. That means the websites of the brands had different information to their in-store collateral. In most cases there was more specific information on hardcopy material than we had seen in other public information on the program.

This might seem like a small point, just a slight difference in the information available, but it is critical in building relationships with consumers. If a consumer can’t trust that all of the brands touchpoints (web, brochure, advertising) gives the same information how do they know what they are entitled to.

I know there are different strategies at play here. Many brands leave detailed info in store because they are chasing truly valuable customers - the ones who have come in and are purchasing. But at Perkler we believe that loyalty should be used more to encourage people into the store in the first place. 

To do that you need to make loyalty rewards active and up to date for the consumer to make a decision. As times get tougher for retailers we are very confident stand-out loyalty offerings (rather than carbon copies of competitors programs) or at least stand out individual offers, will be a key marketing tool to getting people to purchase.

On the weekend I was at a Christmas celebration at my grandmother’s. One by one my Aunties asked how Perkler was going - there are hundreds of them (seems like) so it was a bit like pitching in Silicon Valley again!

Overwhelmingly they were most interested in how things would go for our community in the current downturn. They were worried that because we offer a retail service to consumers there was no future in it when people were overwhelmingly reducing their spend.

Then on the way in I heard this clanger of an interview on the ABC with Howard Davidowitz in New York. Sobering stuff - especially about the estimate he makes on up to 12,000 stores closing in the next calendar year.

So why do we still think (now more than ever) that retail is exactly the right focus for Perkler.

Firstly - it all comes back to the consumer frustration that we set out to fix. It was our original inspiration and remains our obsession to simply make the loyalty market less confusing for consumers.

Secondly - when retail gets tough, retailers should be getting more out of their loyalty programs. Consumers are certainly looking to be given a more compelling reason to spend - what’s more compelling than the combination of ‘better offers’ and ’special status’.

So, retail is getting hammered at the moment - no doubt. But that’s exactly why consumers and retailers should, and will, use their loyalty programs more.

This will probably be the last post before Christmas. Everyone here at Perkler wishes everyone out there in Perkistan a great holiday season, however you choose to celebrate it!

As a final note, the old comments section is getting inundated by spam at the moment (those blokes work harder than us!). So we will be turning the comments function off until after the holidays. If you want to engage with us you can find us via the contact us on the site, or follow us on Twitter @perkler.

Justin

Hey all,

Just a quick post to mention the updates done to the site today.

Firstly, you might notice a new panel both on the home page and next to your wallet. Every week a new featured perk will appear here. This might be a Perkler Rewards special offer, or it could just be some weird and whacky perk that we’ve come across.

Also, you might see perks starting to show up in your wallet with images. Another new feature.
Not only will we be attaching pretty pictures to the perks, but we’ll also be able to attach coupons to special offers, so keep an eye out.

To go with the perk images, we’ve improved the way avatar image uploads are handled - in short, no more squishy heads. If you’ve uploaded a picture for your avatar and it became distorted, you may want to try again.

Other than that, there’s a lot of little bug fixes.
Again, a big thanks to everyone that’s given feedback.