Coles Supermarkets - C R M -

I think every Australian used to do some shopping in Coles Supermarkets.Nowadays, Coles has 745 supermarkets, slightly behind Woolworths which has 867 supermarkets. While the Coles’ strongest competitor - Woolworths reported that its third quarter food and liquor sales grew 2.9% on year; sales in Coles grew more than that, which is 4.1% in the same period. Coles also outperformed Woolworths when comparing sales at stores open for at least a year, with its food and liquor sales rising 2.7% while Woolworths reported no growth.

Australia has one of the most concentrated food retailer sectors in the world. With a population of 22.7 million, Australia is significantly smaller in size than the USA and UK, while it has more supermarkets per capita than the US and nearly triples lager than the UK (Stuart Alexander Marketer distributor, 2012). In Australian total household expenditure, food and non-alcoholic beverages account for over 17%.

Coles and Woolworths as two major grocery chains in this mature market, occupy 80% market share of Australian food retailing market. These two food retailers controlling such a significant share of Australia’s retail food sector indicates that Australian food retailing industry is a duopoly. Food retailing market structures characterised as duopoly generally involve barriers to entry, which restricts new food retailer entering the market. 

Coles Supermarkets claim to have extensive CRM capabilities. Moreover, Coles apparently has em has embraced CRM most openly within the industry. 
Coles Supermarkets have made significant investments in loyalty programs, such as FlyBuys, Coles Mastercards etc. 

Loyalty Program --
Flybuys
Flybuys is a joint venture between Coles and the National Australia Bank. According to promotional material, more than 2.7 milllion households in Australia participate in this shopping reward program, which can make their everyday shopping count for over 1,000 reward choices. 
Signing-up is free of charge
&
various industries have joined the FlyBuys network (ranging from travel agents to hotel chains)


 ARE YOU THE FLYBUYS MEMBER NOW?  

The battle of the big two supermarkets is to heat up with Coles appointing its first loyalty scheme agency to manage a program that will rival Woolworths Everyday Rewards.

According to Lavender Communication Group, Lavender will handle Coles’ customer relationship management (CRM) program, FlyBuys. It’s unclear if Coles will rebrand the program.

Earlier this year, Coles took full ownership of FlyBuys after buying out National Australia Bank’s 50% stake. FlyBuys was launched in 1994 and claims to be Australia’s oldest loyalty program, with more than 10 million members.

A Coles spokesperson confirmed the appointment to AdNews: “Coles has appointed Lavender to work with us on direct marketing activity for FlyBuys. We felt it made sense to engage a direct marketing agency to support us as we look to reinvigorate the program.”

As a FlyBuys member, I'm very enough to having further discount when I'm shopping. & Coles Supermarkets are running the Lower-price Strategy recently, which being more attracting to me~


Did you do shopping in Coles Supermarket frequently? How do you think about Coles' loyalty programs?  Do you think they can be more better~~ don't mind to share with me~