Impressive results for Chemmart Rewards

The Chemmart Rewards system, launched at the start of December, signed up over 30,000 Chemmart Rewards members in the first four weeks of operation.

"Member pharmacies love the program and their customers are fascinated by it – especially the way they can see their rewards balance on the card. It's really engaging consumers and they're using it in droves," said Scott Jones, marketing and communications manager for Chemmart.

The reward scheme, built around Graphicard technology from Visible Results, was rolled out to more than 160 pharmacies nationwide. It allows card members to earn Chemmart Cash on every non-prescription purchase, equal to five per cent of the value of the sale. The customer's cash balance is updated in real-time on the card using the Graphicard’s thermal imaging technology.

Chemmart Cash can be redeemed whenever customers make a non-prescription purchase at any participating Chemmart store. Chemmart suppliers can also use the cards to promote their products directly to customers, either on the face of the card or via email, direct mail or SMS. Each card is completely rewritten each time it is swiped through a special point-of-sale device at the store.

Pharmacists participating in a pilot of the program confirmed an increase in their overall store average transaction value as well as customer frequency.

Pharmacists only need to see a small increase in sales for the system to start delivering results, according to Mr Jones.

"Our business modelling shows that member stores only need to increase sales by 2 per cent for the year and the system pays for itself," he said.