Meeting Ireland's Arboretum

Walking the show floor at Showcase Ireland with Lizzie Curran from Enterprise Ireland and now listening to the CEO of Irish based Arboretum (https://www.arboretum.ie/) Barry Doyle telling the story of re-branding their 40 year old independent retail business, creating an immersive retail experience including a bespoke cafe and events to drive footfall, plus a new loyalty program.

Interesting, their new loyalty program grew quickly from 7,000 to 55,000 customers representing 70% of their sales as they moved away from a points based program to investing in a benefit based program that included exclusive items and values that incremented spend on the shop floor.

Thinking back to my recent conversations with retail loyalty leaders Steven Allmen, Caroline Papadatos and Bryan Pearson...no question change is happening in the retail loyalty space across the world, including a movement to a different exchange of value...paid loyalty programs that offer outsized benefits.