Loyalty Programs: How 4 Companies Foster Loyalty - Special Reports. Loyalty program. Trends: Loyalty Programs - Special Reports. There are frequent-buyer programs, frequent-flier programs, frequent-player cards and frequent-dining coupons.
There are points-at-the-pump schemes, turkey giveaways at Christmas (along with $100 copper roasters in which to cook them) and, as of November 2003, donations to charities for people who use their Starbucks loyalty card to buy coffee.There are plastic cards, smart cards, thermal cards and magnetic strips. Virgin Mobile Australia, a wireless arm of U.K. -based Virgin Group, is using 802.11: Flash your mobile device at a reader as you whiz through checkout at a Virgin music store, and you'll get a couple of dollars knocked off your bill. For more on this topic, see Loyalty Programs: How 4 Companies Manage Loyalty Call it the loyalty craze. Albertson's: A Shot at the Crown - Projects Enterprise Planning. Wal-mart only began selling groceries in 1988.
Now it sells $56 billion of foodstuffs and household goods in its supermarkets every year. That makes larry johnston an underdog. The alumnus of the fabled jack welch era of general electric management aims to make albertson's, with "Just" $36 billion in revenue, the nation's greatest grocer. He's assembled an all-star team in idaho that combines top talent from dell, safeway and, yes, wal-mart to fulfill his quest.