Morrisons are aiming to compete with the likes of Aldi and Lidl by price matching their products against the successful saving supermarkets.
In the run up to Christmas, Morrisons has many plans in place to secure themselves as a top competitor amongst the big four. The retailer has created a customer loyalty card scheme that they refer to as their ‘Match & More‘ card. Tesco which have recently been in the news for share falls and accountancy fails was the first supermarket to introduce a loyalty card in the 1990s. The Morrisons card will provide a price match guarantee with supermarkets such as Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury‘s. The new scheme promises customers value for money with Morrisons and the brand hopes it will put them in the same league as Aldi and Lidl which have been constantly growing in popularity.
Morrisons is currently the fourth biggest supermarket retailer. Awkwardly positioned between more up market food stores such as Waitrose and saver supermarkets Lidl and Aldi, Morrisons are trying to establish themselves alongside the discount stores instead of being the middleman. The retailer is cutting their prices to improve customer confidence and reduce the cost of their supermarket basket. Morrisons is proving their place in the harsh world of the supermarket wars. The competitive price war have damaged share prices as Morrisons lost more than 42%, Tesco dropped around 50% and Sainsbury‘s about 40%.
The loyalty card will check the items in the customers shopping trolley and compare the prices to other supermarket retailers on a database system. If the shop would be cheaper elsewhere the difference will be added in points to the card, 5,000 points results to a five pound voucher. The bad point is Lidl and Aldi stock few branded products meaning those items can not be price matched. The scheme could potentially have the effect of shoppers seeing how cheaper it would be to do their supermarket shopping elsewhere, resulting in customer loyalty to decrease. It is a brave but eye catching move for Morrisons. The card is available now across the country.
