A glitch has meant Tesco Clubcard app users have been offered personalised promotional prices that are higher than the shelf price.
At the weekend, Reddit user posted a screenshot of the ‘Your Clubcard Prices’ section of the app, which provides loyalty scheme members with “exclusive savings on selected products, based on their previous purchase history”.
However, the user’s personalised price for Tesco’s own-label, one-litre bottle of sunflower oil was given as £1.55 – 6p more than the standard price.
“Wow! My own personal offer!” they commented sarcastically.
Tesco told The Grocer that it offered thousands of Your Clubcard Prices deals every week, and such issues were very rare.
It explained the glitch had occurred because the product was added to the supermarket’s Aldi Price Match after the Your Clubcard Price was generated, bringing the full, standard price below the allocated personalised price.
It added that it in such cases it would always honour the lowest applicable price.
Tesco launched the hyper-personalised Clubcard Prices scheme, offering reduced prices for selected customers’ favourite products, in February last year. It offers lower prices on selected products it knows customers like, based on their previous purchase history.
Shoppers receive personalised prices each Wednesday via the Tesco app, with the discounts valid for seven days.
In April this year, Tesco signed an AI deal with software company Adobe focused on personalising the content and offers Tesco serves to its Clubcard members. That followed a three-year deal, announced in December, with the French tech company Mistral AI to develop AI solutions and to overhaul its personalised Clubcard offers.
“At its simplest, loyalty is about rewarding customers for shopping with us,” Becky Brock, Tesco group customer director, told The Grocer in May. “But the real opportunity is making those rewards genuinely useful, convenient and relevant to each individual customer.”
More than a fifth of total grocery revenues for supermarkets offering member prices came from loyalty discounted products, according to a 2024 investigation by the CMA. The average shopper is signed up to three supermarket loyalty schemes.
To boost the appeal of their loyalty schemes, supermarkets are increasingly offering more personalised offers to members.
After Sainsbury’s signed a five-year deal with Microsoft in 2024, the supermarket set out its ambition to “become the UK’s leading AI-enabled grocer”. As part of that strategy, Sainsbury’s said it was “combining advanced technology with our colleagues’ expertise to create more personalised Your Nectar Prices”.
In February, Morrisons partnered with retail engagement company Ecrebo to enhance its ability to generate immediate personalised coupons, offers and messages to customers in-store at the till and via its app.
In March, Co-op allowed members to use their weekly personalised offers to save money when ordering their shop online. The convenience retailer said last year it had increased the number of personalised member offers by 67%, to more than 700.
Since its launch in April, nearly five million customers have visited the new M&S Sparks hub. The revamped loyalty scheme uses a suite of AI and data capabilities, including machine learning and advanced generative AI models “coming soon”, to deliver more personalised offers and rewards for Sparks customers.
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