Tesco moves into mobile couponing with London trial

Tesco is using its first mobile couponing trial to explore how to create awareness and generate footfall at a new Tesco store in London.

The store, on Villiers Street, contains new concepts including a Burrito Kitchen, which Tesco was keen to promote to attract new shoppers.

In partnership with Weve, Tesco sent shoppers who passed by the store or travelled in and out of Embankment Station at least six times over a two-week period a mobile coupon they could redeem in store. It offered £1 off a £3 shop on food to go, with shoppers able to swipe the coupon at the till.

The trial was built on a new scanning system that Tesco is rolling out in its stores, starting in London and with plans to expand across the UK through 2015. These will allow Tesco to offer digital coupons and increase the use of mobile as part of the consumer shopping experience.

Tesco hopes the move to digitise loyalty will offer it more insight more quickly on where coupons are being redeemed and the demographics of the people redeeming them.

The aim is to make loyalty more responsive, meaning Tesco can respond to market conditions when it sets up couponing initiatives in future. Tesco and Weve are currently reviewing the results of this trial and working on what the next phase will look like.

Shelly Chotai, FMCG partnership manager at Weve, says: “Tesco understands that mobile can and should be part of the shopping experience in ways that can directly benefit the consumer and give them a greater understanding of vouchering and couponing process.

“This initiative between Weve and Tesco, tests a whole number of interesting ideas from habitual and live location, unique mobile couponing that can only be redeemed once, to the creation of bespoke audiences to drive footfall into a whole new range of stores that are different in their concept and ideas.”

The mobile coupon trial is the latest push into mobile by Tesco. It recently trialled mobile payments at a number of its London stores and is understood to be looking at ways to digitise its Clubcard loyalty programme to offer more personalised and relevant deals.

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