Swedish Retail Loyalty (part 2)

Digitization will play a key role in enhancing the customer experience in Sweden.

Shoppers want to find the process of shopping easy and they want to be rewarded for choosing you.  Digital tools can facilitate both elements and lead to a better in-store experience. Therefore, it was very interesting for us to see how Swedish shoppers are perceiving the digital offer of its leading retailers.  

What we discovered surprised us.

An astounding 66% of Swedish shoppers don’t think their retailer offers a great e-commerce experience. 59% said the retailers’ apps are not making the shopping process easier either.

The most downloaded app is Lidl PLUS (59% of surveyed shoppers), followed by COOP (40%) and ICA (39%). 4th place goes to Hemköp (27%) which is understandable considering the retailer only launched its new loyalty scheme and app just over a year ago. Lidl’s leading position is also not surprising considering a massive investment in its acquisition campaign.

However, it seems much more needs to be done to improve the user experience and really generate value - and loyalty - from these channels.

Retail has been omnichannel for some time now. It’s clear that digital and physical offers have very different roles to play – but both must work effectively to ensure customer loyalty and deliver expected results.

Digital tools are superb at attracting attention and engagement, capturing data, and understanding your audiences better. But they need to lead people to stores, where they can be wowed by your in-store offers, experience and, crucially, physical rewards. 

If shoppers aren’t impressed by the first stage of that process, they’ll never make it to the purchase phase or become loyal customers. But if these digital channels do deliver on their intended objectives, they give a reason for shoppers to keep returning.

Your digital platforms should be somewhere shoppers can interact with your brand. There are ways of doing this, gamification solutions, for example, that make the shopping experience more fun and interactive.  

And in turn, incentivise shoppers to choose you, rather than the competition.