TESCO Clubcard to go global

In an exclusive interview in Retail Week, the chief executive of Tesco, Sir Terry Leahy, has said that he wants to launch the Clubcard loyalty scheme in every country where the retailer operates. The programme is already available in Ireland and South Korea, but Mr Leahy said that he eventually wants to launch it in the other countries it where the retailer is present –including the USA where Tesco opens for business this summer.

However, he declined to say whether the retailer would launch Clubcard at the same time as it opens its first Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in Phoenix, Arizona.

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 analyse the data and respond to the information. It is important that it does not just end up being a cheap promotional tool."