Happy Monday to all of our readers! We hope everyone had a chance to enjoy the holiday with their family and friends. As usual, here's our team's curated list of the latest customer loyalty and marketing news. Our goal is to make it easier for busy loyalty professionals to stay up to date with essential news and trending topics. If you enjoy our content, please take a few moments to subscribe to our newsletter for exclusive content and more!
- Loyalty Summit kicks off tomorrow
- Bumped is disrupting the loyalty market as it rewards consumers with stock ownership
- Loyalty automation startup Glue raises $8 million in series A funding led by private investors
- Rosetta Stone partners with Uber giving Uber Rewards customers the ability to redeem rewards from the language learning service
- LegacyFX launches its first loyalty program
- In-store traffic on Black Friday decreased by 52.1% as e-commerce sales surged
- Can retailers manage the surging online demand as Cyber Monday sales predicted to hit a record $12.7 billion
- The Central Bank of Iceland's new interbank payment system can process up to 5 million payments daily
- Fiserv adds new contactless technology capabilities to its cloud-based point-of-sale system, Clover
- If Canada's CPPA passes into law, it will make major changes to Canada's corporate consumer privacy rules
- Here's a joint statement from the UN, WHO, and many other organizations on data protection and privacy in regards to COVID-19
- Qantas is offering members of different loyalty programs the opportunity to “fast track” their loyalty status to Gold tier
- PwC expects the significant spike in daily COVID-19 cases to prolong the recovery of the US hospitality industry
LOYALTY EVENTS:
Beginning TOMORROW! The Loyalty Summit has become the most anticipated loyalty conference of the year. The event is conversational in nature and steers away from traditional presentations. The program includes airline and hotel loyalty panels, fireside chats with industry executives, and extraordinary networking opportunities. Now more than ever, loyalty programs are spearheading brand recovery. Our events are truly the “safe space” for the travel loyalty community. Sessions include strategic planning and implementation for airline and hotel loyalty, plus dive into the verticals and new technology solutions. Without a doubt, the speakers and panelists are some of the most influential loyalty leaders from around the globe. It's not too late to get involved. Register now!
LOYALTY PROGRAM NEWS:
Bumped Loyalty Program Rewards Spending With Stock Shares
Quotable: “Bumped, a new loyalty program, lets consumers earn fractional shares of stock as they shop. Once users enroll through Apple’s App store or Google Play, they get a fractional share of stock for their purchases. Most Bumped rewards range from 1% to 5%. They can see the participating firms and search by brand name or category to find a firm that will reward them in stock for their purchases. Chewy, the online pet supplies store, offers 2%, Apple 1%, CVS 1% and Walgreens 2%.”
Glue raises $8 million to automate customer loyalty programs
Quotable: “Loyalty automation platform Glue today raked in $8 million in series A funding from private investors led by Unicorn Technologies. The startup says that the proceeds will be put toward nudging local businesses to adopt loyalty programs. Retail has taken a major hit during the pandemic. Total sales are expected to hit 5.7% from 2019, nearly 12% below eMarketer’s pre-pandemic estimate of $26 trillion. Some data suggests that loyalty programs could help lessen future blows.”
Uber Partners with Rosetta Stone to Include Language Learning in Popular Uber Rewards Program
Quotable: “Rosetta Stone Inc., a division of Cambium Learning Group, Inc., today announced that it has partnered with Uber to give customers who participate in Uber Rewards the opportunity to redeem points for a language learning subscription. For just 750 Uber Reward points, customers can receive a month of Rosetta Stone language learning in a single language.”
LegacyFX Is Excited to Announce the Launch of Their Very Own Loyalty Membership Program
Quotable: “LegacyFX believes that its program will enable us to maintain a positive rapport with our clientele by incentivizing them to transact, trade, review, and promote us in attempt to garner various rewards and branded merchandise. Additionally, we hope to use this as a great marketing tool, as loyalty programs increase growth, help retain customers, and improve reputation.”
RETAIL NEWS:
Was Black Friday a bust?
Quotable: “In-store traffic on Black Friday collapsed 52.1 percent year-over-year, according to Sensormatic Solutions. A steep decline was expected as a second wave of COVID cases raged across the country to keep shoppers at home. Stores in Los Angeles County were forced to limit occupancy to 25 percent. Most retailers closed their stores on Thanksgiving to give their workers a break and offered fewer in-store doorbusters when they opened their doors around dawn on Friday.”
Cyber Monday sales could hit a record $12.7 billion. Can retailers handle the surge?
Quotable: “Coming on the heels of the most e-commerce intensive Black Friday yet, Cyber Monday promises to be a big new test of whether physical retailers will succeed at managing surging online demand this holiday season. Adobe Analytics, which tracks digital transactions on 80 major e-commerce sites, expects online sales could reach as much as $12.7 billion on Monday, up 35% from a year earlier. That is likely to further strain retailers coping with unusually high online sales this year.”
PAYMENTS NEWS:
Central Bank of Iceland Launches With SIA the New Interbank Payment System
Quotable: “The launch of the new gross settlement system and the new instant payment platform puts the Central Bank of Iceland in a prominent position within the evolution of digital payment infrastructures. Indeed, CBI implemented an innovative single platform developed by SIA which processes all types of payments (Bank to Bank, P2P, P2B and B2B) resulting in a consolidated operating model and in a higher level of efficiency in the whole country.”
Fiserv launches contactless payment technology for restaurants
Quotable: “Financial services and payments technology company Fiserv Inc., based in Brookfield, has launched scanning technology that allows customers choosing to dine inside restaurants to digitally view menus, select their orders, and pay using their smartphones and avoiding contact. The scanning technology is through the company's cloud-based point-of-sale system called Clover. Clover allows customers to pay using a debit or credit card and smartphone payment systems Apple Pay, Google Pay or Samsung Pay. More than $100 billion in transactions are processed through Clover on an annual basis, Fiserv said.”
DATA & PRIVACY NEWS:
Canadian Data Privacy Laws Are Changing. Is Your Business Ready to Keep Up
Quotable: “On November 17, 2020, Canada’s federal government introduced a bill to enact new legislation that would strengthen protections for individuals from privacy loss due to the failures and limitations of corporate consumer privacy measures. The proposed legislation, known as the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (“CPPA”), would be the first major overhaul of Canada’s privacy law rules on the private sector since the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“PIPEDA”) came into force in April 2000.”
Joint Statement on Data Protection and Privacy in the COVID-19 Response
Quotable: “Such data collection and processing, including for digital contact tracing and general health surveillance, may include the collection of vast amounts of personal and non-personal sensitive data. This could have significant effects beyond the initial crisis response phase, including, if such measures are applied for purposes not directly or specifically related to the COVID-19 response, potentially leading to the infringement of fundamental human rights and freedoms. This concern is especially pressing if some emergency measures introduced to address the pandemic, such as digital contact tracing, are turned into standard practice.”
TRAVEL & HOSPITALITY NEWS:
Qantas offers status match 'fast track' for 16 airlines
Quotable: “Qantas is offering frequent flyers from Virgin Australia, Singapore Airlines and over a dozen other airlines a status match into its own loyalty program. The Qantas Status Fast Track promotion, which runs from today through to December 18 2020, gives applicants 90 days to lock down a full year of Qantas Frequent Flyer Gold status by earning just 100 status credits instead of the usual tally of 700 status credits. In addition, within that initial 90 day challenge period, Gold-grade perks of lounge access and extra checked baggage are yours to enjoy.”
PwC's US Hospitality Directions: November 2020
Quotable: “Continued political uncertainty leading up to the presidential inauguration, the speed of the business traveler's return after a vaccine, and the length and severity of a resurgence of the virus in Q4 and into 2021 are impacting lodging's recovery in the US. In our May edition, we had assumed the then consensus view that the daily number of new COVID-19 cases in the US peaked in late April. We now know this did not occur, and that the current daily number is over four times that level. This has significantly impacted the recovery timeline.”
Read last week's newswire if you missed it: Loyalty Newswire – November 23rd, 2020
The Loyalty Newswire is compiled and edited by the staff at The Wise Marketer.
