An Empirical Study Of The Supermarket Membership Card On The Impact Of Consumer Loyalty

In an increasingly competitive business environment, companies develop a need for customer loyalty management programs. Therefore, the theory and practice for customer loyalty improvement has become an important field of research. The understanding of the underlying factor influencing customer loyalty has a significant theoretical and practical importance. In this thesis, we indentify four main factors based on the literature review:switching cost, loyalty program features, customer satisfaction, and loyalty program acceptation degree. We then develop an empirical method to measure the relative influence of these factors. We show that the loyalty program acceptation degree is strongly positively correlated with the switching cost, the loyalty program features, and the customer satisfaction. We also show that the customer loyalty is strongly positively correlated with the loyalty program acceptation degree. Finally, we show that the switching cost, the loyalty program features, and the customer satisfaction have an influence on the customer loyalty through the loyalty program acceptation degree.This thesis raises some recommendations to supermarket management in order to enhance the loyalty of their customer. Special attention should be paid to the loyalty program management, as most loyal customers have a loyalty card. The methods to enhance the loyalty program acceptation degree are to build soft barriers against switching, to have an effective management of the loyalty card issued, and to enhance the supermarket image.