Asda has defended its Asda Rewards loyalty app as shoppers vent online about how hard it has become to earn cashback and coupons.
Consumers have taken to multiple online forums in recent months to complain about the stinginess of the rewards scheme offers compared with previous years.
One shopper posting on Mumsnet said they “used to earn at least a few pounds a week” through weekly and top-up shops. But “these days it’s rubbish”, they added. “So disappointing,” another posted on the parenting forum.
“Seems to have all but died,” another shopper posted on Reddit. “Are they killing it off?”
In other online forums, users note how the ‘missions’ shoppers can take part in to earn points – for example buying a certain number of products in a category – “are going pretty downhill” and harder to come by.
Others have noticed how the Rewards scheme’s ‘milestones’ feature – where shoppers get cashback for spending over a certain amount – has become significantly less generous.
“Mine says [spend] £100 to get 50p wtf?” one shopper posted. “0.5% off. Careful, Asda, you don’t want to cause a stampede!”
The comments come after the supermarket in January ditched the app’s ‘Star Products’ feature – with which shoppers could earn cashback for buying certain products.
Asda’s loyalty scheme launched nationally in 2022 and within a year was the UK’s third favourite after Tesco’s Clubcard and Sainsbury’s Nectar, according to an index by digital agency Future Platforms.
The supermarket was relatively late in offering a loyalty scheme – Tesco having launched Clubcard in 1995, and Nectar launching with Sainsbury’s in 2002.
While shoppers at other supermarkets use their loyalty cards to access lower member prices, an Asda spokesman told The Grocer that: “Unlike our competitors, Asda doesn’t believe in two-tier pricing.
“That’s why we’re focusing our investment on lowering prices for every single one of our customers at the shelf-edge through Rollback and Asda Price,” they added.
Rollback and Asda Price appear to have taken priority over loyalty app rewards. In January, Asda executive chairman Allan Leighton vowed to make its entire product range cheaper than all other full range supermarkets within the next two years.
Asda said it would add thousands more products to Rollback at regular intervals during the year as part of its plan to move its entire range to a new low ‘Asda Price’. It added many prices would be on average 5% cheaper than other supermarkets.
An Asda spokesman told The Grocer Asda Rewards should be considered a “bonus” rather than means to access best value.
“Customers don’t need Asda Rewards to access the best prices at Asda, we believe in offering Asda Price to everyone, so Asda Rewards is our way of saying ‘thank you’ to our customers for shopping with us, a bonus reward for their loyalty and for shopping at Asda,” the spokesman said.
Nevertheless, the app’s six million users will continue to be offered “exclusive personalised missions and events through the app to help them build up their Cashpots”, they added.
But for many shoppers, the app’s appeal is severely diminished. As one Reddit user put it: “I’m hoping it changes back to how it was. But at the moment, it is not really much of an incentive/loyalty card.”
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