Tesco Clubcard Goes Global

LONDON -- Tesco chief executive Sir Terry Leahy has vowed to launch the Tesco Clubcard in every country where the grocer operates, according to Retail Week.

The company's powerful customer insight tool has already been introduced to the Republic of Ireland and South Korea. However, in an exclusive interview with Retail Week, Leahy said he wants to eventually launch it in the other 10 countries Tesco trades in, including the U.S.

Clubcard, which is managed by data analytics specialist Dunnhumby, has been at the heart of the grocer's success over the past decade, the report stated. The card enables Tesco to track the shopping habits of up to 13 million British families.

Ahead of his speech at the World Retail Congress in Barcelona next week, Leahy declined to say whether the retailer would launch Clubcard in the U.S. at the same time it opens its first Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in Phoenix, Ariz.

However, he added that Tesco needed to have scaleable operations in a country before the launch of Clubcard was a viable option.

"You need to be of a certain size to make good use of Clubcard because you have to develop quite expensive insight teams that can properly analyze the data and respond to the information," Leahy said in the Retail Week report. "It is important that it does not just end up being a cheap promotional tool."
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