The Taiwanese-French venture Far Eastern Geant (
The company hopes the loyalty-card plan will boost sales by offering discounts and free products to some customers, Kruse told the Taipei Times during an interview last week.
With a handful of kiosks installed in each store, customers with loyalty cards will be able to scan their cards at any time in the store, even after they check out, to receive personalized shopping information, Kruse said.
Besides recording customers' family data and individual shopping habits, such as which brand of soft drinks the cardholders buy, the cards also will offer discounts and free products on a random basis, making the shopping process more interactive and interesting, he said.
"We know in Asia, the longer people stay in the store, the more they buy," Kruse said.
The membership cards will be the first issued by Far Eastern Geant, spokeswoman Brenda Yen (
Both Carrefour and RT-Mart have similar customer membership card services.
Launched six years ago, Carrefour's credit cards are exclusively for use in its 32 stores and are now held by 600,000 customers, a group which has increased by about 12,000 per month.
Cardholders can enjoy discounts of between 10 percent and 20 percent when purchasing certain products, according to public relations manager Lilian Lee (
Number-two player RT-Mart (
The 22-outlet retailer now has 2 million members who are eligible for discounts and accumulate points for every NT$100 of purchases made.
Cardholders' consumption accounts for 80 percent of the company's monthly revenues, Wang said. "The success of a membership system hinges on massive information integration," she said, but membership card systems are no guarantee of increased revenues.
Rachel Lee (
"This could be a selling point to attract more members," Lee said.
"But besides highlighting the system's interactive capability and offering promotional items, what's more important is [the company's] next step, and we don't know that yet," she said.
Far Eastern Geant and RT-Mart are discussing forming an alliance or even a merger, said Douglas Hsu (
"If such cooperation takes shape, we dont know what they will do with [Far Eastern Geant's] card system," Lee said.
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