Much is changing at Waitrose. This month will see the departure of executive director James Bailey after five-and-a-half years at the helm. Bailey’s last day will be 30 September and while much of the focus for Jason Tarry, the chairman of Waitrose’s parent company John Lewis Partnership, will be on finding Bailey’s long-term successor, he will also be keeping more than an eye on this week’s expansion of the MyWaitrose loyalty programme.

In addition to existing benefits such as free hot drinks and weekly personalised vouchers, shoppers will be able to earn ‘Little Treats’. Using MyWaitrose data, the supermarket will track a shopper’s spend each month and reward them with money-off vouchers or a free product once they’ve reached spending milestones.

MyWaitrose members will be able to claim three rewards each month, once they spend £50, then £100, and finally £250 in-store or online. The threshold will reset at the end of each month, giving shoppers the ability to earn “dozens” of rewards throughout the year.

Waitrose will begin piloting the new offer in 18 of its southern supermarkets. It is just part of a much wider review of loyalty across the John Lewis Partnership. That review includes much-delayed plans to better integrate the separate MyWaitrose and MyJohn Lewis schemes into a “pan-partnership programme”.

This integration has been much trailed ever since JLP restructured and effectively merged Waitrose and John Lewis management in 2019. Six years later and the jury for a pan-partnership loyalty remains decidedly out. Questions remain as to whether a single strategy is best for two still very different operations. Surely the majority of Waitrose shoppers would have preferred a more targeted and improved loyalty scheme that was purely Waitrose focused? It could have been put in place six years ago.

There are clearly good examples already of how JLP is leveraging both businesses: John Lewis deliveries that can be picked up in Waitrose stores, complementary John Lewis homeware ranges on sale in supermarkets and hybrid John Lewis stores featuring Waitrose food halls all fit this bill.

Waitrose-focused rewards

But I am prepared to bet that most Waitrose shoppers want better Waitrose rewards much more than John Lewis rewards. Food and grocery shopping is a life essential, while the majority of John Lewis shopping trips would certainly not fall into this category. Many Waitrose shoppers will already visit their local store more than once a week, while they may not in even shop with John Lewis more than a handful of times a year.

My instinct is that most of these pan-partnership plans have more to do with boosting the John Lewis side of things than the Waitrose side. Whether this is the case or not, JLP’s plans should not result in Waitrose customers missing out on decent rewards for their loyalty to Waitrose.

Little Treats should certainly have a positive impact for existing Waitrose customers – the already higher price points mean a shopper who only visits a store four times a month will easily take their spend past the £100 mark. Even the £250 wouldn’t be too hard to achieve in most cases.

It will certainly be interesting to see how Waitrose’s loyalty evolves over the coming months and to what extent Tarry will influence it. He is now one year into his role, having spent more than 30 years at Tesco, a business famous for having one of, if not the most, sophisticated and successful loyalty schemes ever.

Of course, the nature of JLP means John Lewis cannot simply be ignored, but the strategy must have the bread and butter at its heart – and that’s Waitrose.

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