How likely are holiday shoppers to use loyalty programs?

A new survey reveals that some consumers segments are more likely to rely on loyalty programs for holiday shopping than others.

The survey of more than 4,000 consumers in the U.S. and U.K., conducted by YouGov for composable commerce solutions provider Commercetools, reveals that 65% of respondents in both regions planning to leverage loyalty programs to save money during the 2023 holiday shopping season.

However, when that figure is broken down into different respondent demographics, a number of interesting trends emerge: Additional findings include:

• Millennial respondents ages 35-44 are most likely (71%) to embrace loyalty programs to save money, while respondents ages 55 and up are least likely to use their rewards accounts.
• Women are more likely (71%) to use their loyalty programs to save money than men (58%), which Commercetools says could be attributed to male respondents being more likely to not have a rewards account compared to women (18% vs. 12%).
• U.K. respondents are slightly more likely to use loyalty programs than U.S. respondents (66% vs 63%).
• Respondents in the U.S. are twice as likely to say that they won't be shopping during the holiday season compared to U.K. respondents (7.1% vs 3.5%).
• U.S. respondents who live in the Midwest are least likely (60%) to use loyalty programs this holiday season compared to respondents any other region.
• While over half of all respondents plan to use their rewards to get better discounts,15% of all respondents said they don't have any loyalty programs.

"The mindset around loyalty programs is obviously shifting. Consumers fully expect to be rewarded for their allegiance to a brand, whereas before those rewards may have been simply perceived as a nice perk, but not a need to have," said Jen Jones, chief marketing officer of Commercetools. "Given that over half of consumers are relying on loyalty programs this holiday season, the obvious strategy for brands would be to invest more in providing repeat customers with exclusive sales and discounts. Meeting consumers wherever they are and however they want is critical to retail sales growth."

[Read more: Survey: Majority of consumers will shop retail holiday sales]