Have daily deal fatigue? Here's a new approach to local merchant loyalty

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8 points·geofflewis··5 comments

Stopped reading at "Deep discounting is not a sustainable customer retention strategy for the long term,". How can you say this when the most successful retailers in the world use this as their long term competitive strategy?

The most successful retailers in the world are able to fund deep discounting on a regular basis by applying pricing pressure on their suppliers. Wal-Mart demands price cuts from suppliers (and gets them) to fund their High-Low pricing strategy. Joes Hardware cannot. Topguest Apex is aimed at creating value for small-medium local merchants, not the "most successful retailers in the world."

Their great idea is a standard loyalty program?

No, wait, it's a loyalty program that rewards you for loyalty to any merchant in the program... So, not really loyalty. More like happenstance.

No, you are only rewarded at your favorite merchants. Topguest identifies the merchants you frequent most based on your check-ins, and selects your top 3 most visited local merchants and begins giving you bonus points for that loyalty. Not every merchant, and personalized for each user

I'm not sure that's any better. If I'm loyal to 5 different companies, 2 of them basically get me nothing, not matter how good they are. The fact that I get nothing, when others reward me, will eventually cast a shadow on them... And it's no fault of their own.

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