– The purpose of this paper is to understand how small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) retailers adopt and implement a loyalty card programme as a marketing management decision-making tool.
– A qualitative and longitudinal case study research design is adopted. Data were collected from multiple sources, incorporating semi-structured interviews and analysis of company documents and observation within a retail SME.
– The findings presented focus on the loyalty card adoption process to reflect both the organisational issues and impact upon marketing management decision-making.
– This research is restricted to one region within the UK, investigating loyalty card adoption within a specific industry sector.
– SME retailers operate in an industry environment whereby there is a competitive demand for loyalty card programmes. SME retailers need to carefully consider how to match the firm’s characteristics with customer relationship management (CRM) operational requirements as highlighted in this case.
– The evidence presented extends current knowledge of retail loyalty card programmes beyond the context of large organisations to encompass SMEs. The study also illustrates the value of a structured, formal CRM system to help SME retailers compete in a complex, competitive and omni-channel marketplace, adding new insights into the retail literature.
