E-coupon And Loyalty Card Technology Drive Grocery Stores Toward Sophisticated E-marketing

Grocery chains are finally emerging from a stubborn reluctance to embrace e-commerce, says e-commerce monitor Dynamite Data. Grocers have adopted loyalty card technology, which allows shoppers to register a store card and receive discounts at the checkout counter. E-coupon offers have doubled every six months in the last two years, with more than 500 unique manufacturer offers running every week. The new technology has led to a “dramatic … shift in consumer behavior” that has driven 22 major grocery chains toward multichannel commerce. Two major chains are attempting to vary e-coupon recommendations based on purchase history. One coupon aggregator will launch Twitter and Facebook integration this year, fashioning e-coupon offers based on trends from a customer’s social graph.