Nothing Personal: Nearly a Third of Loyal Shoppers Would Switch Merchants for More Personalized Card-Linked Offers

The 2023 holiday shopping season was a challenging time for consumers as rising prices made it difficult to manage their spending. 

In this competitive marketplace, card-linked offers emerged as an attractive option for budget-conscious shoppers, with many merchants and card issuers leveraging item-level receipt data to provide tailored discounts and rewards to consumers in search of deals. 

This is according to findings detailed in “Leveraging Item-Level Receipt Data: How Merchants Engaged Holiday Shoppers With Card-Linked Offers,” in which PYMNTS Intelligence and Banyan drew on insights from a survey of over 2,000 consumers to examine how merchants and card issuers harness item-level receipt data to deliver relevant card-linked offers that boost loyalty and attract new customers.

Per the research study, nearly 63 million consumers who planned to make holiday purchases were highly interested in using card-linked offers. Among them, close to two-thirds of cardholders used card-linked offers, and 27% of cardholders surveyed said they were highly likely to do so. 

Interest in card-linked offers was highest among top spenders, with 40% of consumers with children and 39% of millennials expressing a high likelihood of using them during the holiday season.

The availability of discounts and the ease of use were key drivers of consumer interest in card-linked offers, while good cash-back rewards and automatically applied discounts were cited as the most important reasons for using these offers. Additionally, consumers valued easy checkout and the opportunity to discover new merchants. 

The survey also revealed that consumers are highly interested in product-specific card-linked offers for daily essentials. Commuting and groceries were the top categories, with 60% of cardholders expressing a high likelihood of using product-specific card-linked offers for these expenses. 

Drilling down into the data further revealed that both loyal and new shoppers showed high levels of interest in switching from their current merchants to those providing card-linked deals tailored to specific products, suggesting that appealing and relevant offers can sway even previously loyal customers to new retailers. 

Further data revealed that millennials, newcomers and consumers with children are the most inclined to switch retailers, with nearly 42%, 41% and 40% respectively expressing a strong likelihood to do so. Moreover, over one-third of Gen Z individuals stated they were very or extremely likely to make a similar switch.

Overall, the report highlighted that 57% of consumers are at least somewhat likely to switch to merchants that provide product-specific card-linked discounts and rewards. 

In sum, leveraging item-level receipt data to provide tailored and relevant card-linked offers can be an effective strategy for engaging holiday shoppers and, by extension, everyday consumers. 

As noted in the study, personalizing and tailoring their product-specific card-linked offers gives retailers an edge in driving consumer spending, attracting new customers and fostering long-term customer loyalty.

The post Nothing Personal: Nearly a Third of Loyal Shoppers Would Switch Merchants for More Personalized Card-Linked Offers first appeared on PYMNTS.com.