82% of South Africans are using loyalty schemes

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The whitepaper is a comprehensive annual snapshot of the loyalty habits of over 35,000 South African adults with a gross monthly household income of R10,000 or more, combined with 8,000 South Africans whose monthly household income falls just under R10,000.

Collectively, this research study represents the loyalty behaviours of over 20 million South African consumers.

The whitepaper highlights the fact that loyalty programmes are a powerful aid for South Africans to combat the rising food and energy costs each month.

Clicks re-gains most used loyalty programme

Clicks ClubCard has re-gained its position as most used loyalty programme in South Africa, for the 5th year since the whitepaper series began in 2015.

Eighty percent of South African consumers who use loyalty programmes claim to use the Clicks ClubCard programme.

Dr Melanie Van Rooy, chief marketing officer at Clicks Group states: “Clicks ClubCard cashback is used as a currency for financial survival and we see redemption of cashback at an all-time high. Members don’t just spend their cashback on luxuries, but often on staples like soap and toilet paper.”

Outside of the retail sector, FNB eBucks and Spur Family Card retain their top positions of the most used financial services and QSR/restaurants loyalty programmes respectively, for economically active consumers (household income >R10,000 p.m.), with Capitec Live Better being the loyalty programme of choice in financial services for mass market consumers (household income

In terms of the loyalty programmes which South Africans claim they can’t live without, both Discovery Vitality and Capitec Live Better are the winning brands in terms of being indispensable to their members (economically active and mass market consumers respectively).

South Africa is a mature loyalty market

The South African market has been consistent over the past eight years in terms of over 70% of South Africans using loyalty programmes.

Amanda Cromhout, CEO of Truth states: “South Africa is a mature loyalty market. We have exceptional loyalty experiences in South Africa and the results in the 2024/5 Truth & BrandMapp Loyalty Whitepaper confirm this once again. We have seen an explosion in the volume of programmes which South Africans use over the past ten years. This has grown from an average of 3.6 programmes per person to 10.3 programmes in 2024.”

Cash continues to remain king

Cashback remains the number one loyalty benefit of choice; all ages, income and genders vote for cashback.

Interestingly, the BrandMapp study asks consumers if they prefer to save points for a bigger reward or to be instantly rewarded.

Fascinatingly, customers tend to fall into three groups: those who wish to save points for a bigger reward, those who wish to be instantly rewarded and those who want both.

Surprisingly, consumers still prefer to swipe a loyalty card than identify themselves via apps or other digital means like digital cards, but over the past three years we have started to see the gap between loyalty card and app narrow.

Sixty-six percent of South African consumers prefer to swipe a physical card and 34% prefer to use an app.

For the first time, we explore whether loyalty programmes influence consumer behaviour in relation to social causes which they care about. Globally, we see that consumers expect loyalty programmes to contribute to sustainability initiatives driven by brands.

However, South Africans show less concern towards sustainability and placing education as the social cause which needs the most support.

This is firmly backed up with loyalty programmes like MySchool My Village MyPlanet or redeeming points towards an educational cause, as ways to support education initiatives.