Think of it as Canadian Tire‘s version of bitcoin.
Canadian Tire’s iconic paper money loyalty program is getting a digital makeover next month with consumers able to collect rewards using a mobile app or card – though traditionalists can still get the paper if they want.
At an event held Tuesday morning in Toronto, Allan MacDonald, chief operating officer at Canadian Tire, introduced “My Canadian Tire Money” – an enhanced program the retailer has been testing in Nova Scotia for more than two years.
To join the program, customers can sign up through Canadian Tire’s mobile app or register for the card or key fob in-store. The digital Canadian Tire Money can be redeemed for merchandise, gift cards, automotive services or donated to the Canadian Tire Jumpstart charity.
“My Canadian Tire Money” allows the retailer to glean deeper insights into the shopping habits of its consumers, which couldn’t be done through the paper program, and therefore offer more tailored communications and promotions.
“With the information received through the program, we’ll better understand how and when customers shop and what they’re buying,” said MacDonald. “That means we can be more relevant to our customers by ensuring our products, services and promotions reflect their shopping preferences.”
“Knowing our customers better means we can offer them so much more and will enable us to turn our digital flyer into a tool that is specific to each individual customer,” he said.
For instance, consumers with kids that play hockey will be alerted to deals on equipment at the start of the season, said MacDonald, who was joined at the press conference by Carol Deacon, the retailer’s senior vice-president loyalty and digital. These exclusive bonuses will be sent directly to the shopper’s online and mobile account.
The two-year pilot program in Nova Scotia revealed a lot about Canadian Tire’s data mining capabilities and also what consumers liked and disliked about the program, said Deacon.
“You see behaviours and what people do with their Canadian Tire money and not surprisingly there’s two camps: there’s people who spend it as soon as they get it and there’s people who never spend it or save it up for a big day,” said MacDonald. “It will be interesting to see if the rest of the country follows.”
Tailored communications aside, the point of a loyalty program is to help drive sales. Though the average basket size of a loyalty cardholder versus a non-member was fairly consistent during the test period, loyalty members visited the retailer more frequently, said MacDonald.
In November, Stephen Wetmore, chief executive officer of Canadian Tire Corporation, told Marketing that the retailer spent too much money per customer launching the test program in Nova Scotia.
“But it’s why you [launch] it in a small market so you can figure it out,” he said. “And you go through all the growing pains of, you know, if you sign up to be part of the loyalty program and you forget your card at the store, then how do we handle that? There’s a lot to it.”
Many consumers still value the old-school Canadian Tire paper money, so there are no immediate plans to discontinue it, said MacDonald. And those looking to cash in on the new digital program, can have their paper bills converted to digital currency, which they can track online or through the app.
The Canadian Tire money program launched in 1958. The paper bills, which come in pink, purple, blue, brown and green, have affectionately been referred to as Canada’s second currency.
