Nectar seeks to exploit card data

Loyalty card to offer greater detail on customers

Nectar to exmploit its customer data

The company behind the Nectar loyalty card wants to improve data analysis of consumer behaviour and shopping trends for retailers outside the loyalty scheme.

Loyalty Management Group (LMG), the firm behind Nectar, already sells data analysis services to third parties. It now plans to use business intelligence software to deliver more detail.

Loyalty data is enormously useful, guiding store locations and product launches, for example. But if the information is not exclusive, it may not offer the same benefits.

‘Customer data is extremely valuable,’ said Neil Saunders, consulting director for retail analyst Verdict Research.

‘Nectar must ensure the information is not derived from its particpants customer behaviour,' he said.

LMG has been analysing transaction data since the cards were launched in 2002. Nectar is used by half of UK households, providing a significant database of customer behaviour.

LMG’s expansion plans could be up and running within the year, says LMG client insights director Koos Berkhout

‘We have data from 16 retailers and we want to use it to provide more analysis for participants,’ said Berkhout. ‘But we can also offer analysis services to companies not with Nectar using their own data.'

In-house development and extended use of SAS business intelligence tools will deliver the more targeted information.