Successful Rewards Programs Prove That Even Wealthy Shoppers Like Freebies and Special Gifts

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Aug 14, 2013) - In a new survey of affluent consumers by the Luxury Institute, wealthy shoppers earning at least $150,000 a year share detailed observations and evaluations of various loyalty and rewards programs, and offer suggestions for improvements to existing frequent shopper initiatives.

Overall, 72% of wealthy consumers participate in some kind of loyalty program, with the most popular ones connected to credit cards, airlines, hotels and grocery stores. Men are significantly more likely to be members of airline and hotel rewards programs, while women are disproportionately represented in programs sponsored by grocery stores, drugstores and department stores. Previous Luxury Institute research has shown that Sephora, American Express and Amazon are the top three favorite rewards programs among affluent consumers.

Very few respondents say that they belong to a luxury brand rewards program. The main perceived benefits of luxury brands' loyalty programs are special offers and rewards, earning and redeeming points, and free goods and services. Free gifts carry more importance among women, shoppers under 50, and those with net worth less than $1 million.

Satisfaction with existing loyalty programs is high and most high-income shoppers say that they have had positive experiences with their memberships. The vast majority of shoppers report that loyalty programs exert a strong influence over purchasing decisions.

"Loyalty Programs combined seamlessly with one-to-one customer relationship building can be highly effective in driving conversion and retention while making data collection easier," says Luxury Institute CEO Milton Pedraza.

About Luxury Institute (www.LuxuryInstitute.com)
The Luxury Institute is the objective and independent global voice of the high net-worth consumer. The Institute conducts extensive and actionable research with wealthy consumers about their behaviors and attitudes on customer experience best practices. In addition, we work closely with top-tier luxury brands to successfully transform their organizational cultures into more profitable customer-centric enterprises. Our Luxury CRM Culture consulting process leverages our fact-based research and enables luxury brands to dramatically Outbehave as well as Outperform their competition. The Luxury Institute also operates LuxuryBoard.com, a membership-based online research portal, and the Luxury CRM Association, a membership organization dedicated to building customer-centric luxury enterprises.