Impact of Flybuys on Customer Purchasing Behaviour in Australian Retail Market, Coles

This research analyzes the impact of the consumer loyalty program Flybuys on customer purchasing behaviour of Australian retail market, Coles. It assesses the prospective of brand loyalty and customer purchase intention in the Australian retail stores and analyzes the impact of loyalty cards schemes implementation over the purchasing power of the customers of the Australian retail firms.

Running head: BUSINESS RESERACH
Business Research Analysis
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................3
2. Project Objective.........................................................................................................................3
3. Project Scope...............................................................................................................................4
4. Literature Review........................................................................................................................4
4.1. Brand Loyalty.......................................................................................................................4
5. Research Questions/Hypothesis...................................................................................................6
Primary Question.............................................................................................................................6
To assess the impact of the consumer loyalty program Flybuys on customer purchasing
behaviour of Australian retail market, Coles...................................................................................6
- Secondary Questions.....................................................................................................................6
6. Research Design and Methodology.............................................................................................6
Approach of Research..................................................................................................................6
Data Collection Technique...........................................................................................................7
Data Analysis...............................................................................................................................7
Ethical considerations..................................................................................................................8
Sampling and Sample Size...........................................................................................................8
7. Research Limitations...................................................................................................................9
8. Time Schedule (Research plan).................................................................................................10
9. Conclusion.................................................................................................................................11

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Reference List................................................................................................................................12
Appendix........................................................................................................................................14

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1. Introduction
Customer loyalty is an essential phenomenon in the modern day scenario. This is because
there is the availability of a large number of alternatives in the current market. In order to avoid
this, the customers must be offered certain services that they will not find in any other stores. So,
there has to be a customer loyalty program that needs to be developed. Organizations
demonstrate incredible enthusiasm for having a loyal client. Customer dependability unavoidably
helps with accomplishing upper hand even in a market where there is forceful rivalry (Giddens,
2010). The Australian retail organizations have to select and apply any of the assorted
methodologies with any particular goal to make the customers develop a loyalty towards the
particular brand. They have to make sure that they are achieving their objective of developing a
brand loyalty of the customers.
Loyalty card frameworks is one principle and profoundly successful approach, among the few
accessible strategies and methodologies that focuses on mark faithfulness, taken by organizations
to support their customer's unwaveringness towards the brand.
2. Project Objective
a) To assess the prospective of brand loyalty and customer purchase intention in the Australian
retail stores
b) To analyze the impact of loyalty cards schemes implementation over the purchasing power of
the customers of the Australian retail firms

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C) To analyze the outcome of the consumer purchasing behavior in the Australian retail markets
after the implementation of the loyalty cards and the loyalty schemes.
d) To make use of the loyalty cards and the schemes on the purchasing behavior of the
consumers of the Australian retail sectors.
3. Project Scope
This research is concentrating upon analyzing the concept of Flybuys loyalty card schemes on
the purchasing power of the potential customers of Australian Retail firms like Coles.In addition,
the impact on customers purchase intention is persuaded by the loyalty card programs that will
be explored in the current research.
4. Literature Review
4.1. Brand Loyalty
As per the opinion of Mourali (2005), brand loyalty is an essential elements that helps the
Australian retail firms to make sure that they are being able to retain their clients. So, they
always try to keep their customers happy. They try to do it so that he customers do not switch to
any other alternatives. As per the opinion of Anton (2016) the customers often have a very
haphazard way of purchasing the goods and services from the markets. They might feel mentally
satisfied to keep on shopping from one particular brand. It is for this reason that the
organizations in Australia are trying to set up many loyalty card schemes that will enable to
create a bond or a connection between the particular type of brand and the potential customers.

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As per the opinion of (Sergeevich and Vladimirovich, 2015), the customer satisfaction helps in
the building the brand loyalty or the customer loyalty. So, in the course of the consumption
behavior of the goods and services by the clients as is offered by the different organizations, it is
important for fulfilling all the needs and requirements of the customers. Bridson et al. (2008) has
suggested that it is important for the organizations to make sure that they are not only providing
the consumers with a variety of goods and services at interesting financial price but also to
ensure that the customers are present at all the possible channels of the distribution.
The customers always expect that they will be getting a good and a flawless service from
the end of the organizations. It is for this reason that the organizations have tried to invent some
loyalty card schemes that will help the consumers to develop a loyalty towards some specific or
particular kinds of brands. As per the opinion of Conversely, Turner and Wilson (2006) the
loyalty schemes will also affect the purchasing behavior of the consumers. This will help in
making the customers go and buy from the same brand. It has been contended by Smith and
Sparks (2009), that though the organizations create many loyalty programs and many card
programs, they do not take care of the customer purchasing aims. This is one of the most
important requirements for creating a proper connection between the brands and the customers.
Coles is one of the most leading retailers or the super market chains in Australia and they have
created the flybuys in order to develop a strong customer loyalty. This helps the customers to
gain and redeem a large number of retail points. They can collect these retail points and can use
the same for spending on a large number of items like the grocery materials, general retail,
travel, petrol and many other such items. Though this is very useful for the customers but it can
also have some or the other kinds of harmful impacts on their purchasing power as well. This is
because this often makes the customers to assert over their purchasing decisions. After a specific

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time the customers might get really disturbed by thinking that they are buying from the same
brand again and again. This might create a kind of irritation among the customers and they might
stop going back to the same brand again and again.
5. Research Questions/Hypothesis
Primary Question
To assess the impact of the consumer loyalty program Flybuys on customer purchasing
behaviour of Australian retail market, Coles.
- Secondary Questions
a) To assess the prospective of brand loyalty and customer purchase intention in the Australian
retail stores
b) To analyze the impact of loyalty cards schemes implementation over the purchasing power of
the customers of the Australian retail firms
6. Research Design and Methodology
Approach of Research
Research approach is one of the most important methods that is used for getting the
preferable findings of the research. Selecting the right kinds of methods is also very important in
this particular aspect. There are mainly two kinds of research approaches. They are inductive and
deductive which facilitates in obtaining reliable research outcomes. The present reserach is

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mainly concerned about finding the effect of the loyalty programs over the purchasing behaviour
of the potential consumers of the Australian retail markets like Coles. The current research will
be using the deductive as it aligns with the positivism research philosophy, so that it can gain the
constructive results from the research. The research philosophy is positivism is directly related
with the quantitative data evaluation.
Data Collection Technique
Primary data along with the secondary data will be accumulated in the present research in
understanding and analysing of using the loyalty program methods. Secondary data will be taken
from the authentic journals that are the peer reviewed journals, government publications,
company websites, in order to find out the effects of the flybuys or the other kinds of loyalty
programme on the purchasing behaviour of the customers. Primary data will be accumulated by
the different methods like analysis of the questionnaires through which innovative loyalty
program questions can be asked from the selected managers of the Australian retail firm that is
Coles.
Data Analysis
The gathered data will be analyzed by using the analytical as well as statistical
techniques. Using the proper statistical and technical approach is necessary for getting the
authentic and reliable research outcomes. It will also help in getting composed data interpretation
and helps in maintaining a proper transparency (Gomez, Mclaughlin and Wittink 2014). The MS
excel sheet will be used for representing the opinion of the respondents in the percentage form to

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analyse the impact of the flybuy and the other consumer loyalty programme on the purchasing
behaviour of the customers of Australian retail market, Coles.
Ethical considerations
There can be a considerable clash in the open and the hidden research. It is also the right
of the society to get the correct and the exact information about the research that is being
conducted. Materials that is used for the qualitative analysis is scattered on the different places
over the online internet medium (Zakaria et al. 2014). At the time of research the internet makes
a huge amount of effort. This helps in decreasing the limitations of research amount and time
(Bowen and Chen McCain 2015). However there are also several questions regarding the quality
of the researched materials and the data that is available. Faith or trust is also one of the most
important factor in this particular aspect.
They have to maintain the ethical issue that is also very important in the business
operations as well. Apart from this the clarity and the sincerity also has to be maintained in all
the aspects. It is the duty of the researcher to make sure that he is using all the current data in his
research and is also trying to maintain all kinds of origin originality in his work.
Sampling and Sample Size
It is a procedure by which the researchers can choose or select the target respondent from
huge populations important techniques are used by the researchers to select the exact spices from
which he or she can gather the correct and the authentic data (Bues et al. 2017). Considering
such scenario the simple random sampling methods will be used by the researchers in order to
find out the data and the information from the managers of the Australian supermarket that is
Coles. This method will be best suited for this current research as it can help in providing an

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equal opportunity to all the selected respondents. The selected respondents in this case are the
selected managers of the leading Australian supermarket that is Coles. It will give an equal
opportunity to each and every survey respondent to get selected. The sample size will be very
carefully selected for understanding the role or the impact of the customer loyalty cards and
schemes on the purchasing behaviour of the customers of Coles, Australia will be 50 managers.
These managers will be chosen from the Australian super market Coles.
7. Research Limitations
One of the research limitations is that the respondents might have this tendency of giving
a positive reply about the usage of the loyalty program and the flybuys loyalty scheme. This is
because of the fact that they might be hesitant or worried in revealing the exact issue or the exact
problems that they are facing while using the loyalty program cards or the customer loyalty
schemes. The managers of the Coles supermarket might also be hesitant in discussing the actual
problems that the customers have in bearing the customer loyalty cards like the flybuys and also
in maintain the services that are provided by the same.

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8. Time Schedule (Research plan)
Task Week
1
Week
2
Week
3
Week
4
Week
5
Week
6
Week
7
Week
8
Week
9
Selection of topic
and search for
justification
Constructing
literature
Selecting
appropriate
methods
Data collection
Data analysis and
representation
Reviewing the
outcomes
Conclusions and
recommendations
Submitting draft
of the project
Printing and final
submission

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9. Conclusion
So, it can be concluded that the current research was done by using the best available
technologies and methods. The section of the research methodology has been explained by using
the suitable study approach, data analysis, plan of data analysis and also many other such
methods. The data that has been provided in this research has been done by using the apt
research procedures that the recent study will be using for channelizing and understanding the
concept of positivism by linking the models and theories that have been explained in the section
of the literature review accompanied by the background section of the research. Simple random
sampling method will also be used for collecting data.

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Reference List
Anton, J (2016), Customer Relationship Management: Making hard Decisions with Soft
Numbers, Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Arturo, M, Victor, JM, Jesus, S and Aranda, E (2009), “Consumer service and loyalty in Spanish
grocery store retailing: an empirical study”, International journal of consumer studies, Vol. 33,
pp 477- 485.
Bowen, J.T. and Chen McCain, S.L., 2015. Transitioning loyalty programs: a commentary on
“the relationship between customer loyalty and customer satisfaction”. International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(3), pp.415-430.
Bridson, K, Evan, J and Hickman, M (2008), “Assessing the relationship between loyalty
program attributes, store satisfaction and store loyalty”, Journal of retailing and consumer
Service, Vol.15, pp 364-374.
Bryman, A and Bell, E (2007), Business Research Methods, 4th (ed), New York: Oxford
Bues, M., Steiner, M., Stafflage, M. and Krafft, M., 2017. How Mobile In‐Store Advertising
Influences Purchase Intention: Value Drivers and Mediating Effects from a Consumer
Perspective. Psychology & Marketing, 34(2), pp.157-174.
Chiara, Mauri (2013), “Card loyalty: A new emerging issue in grocery retailing”, Journal of
Retailing and Consumer Services, Vol.10, pp.13-25.

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De Wulf, K and Schroder, GO (2003), “Assessing the impact of a retailer’s relationship effort on
consumers‟ attitudes and behavior”, Journal of Retailing and consumer services, Vol. 10, pp.95-
108.
Gomez, MI, Mclaughlin, EW and Wittink, DR (2014), “Customer satisfaction and retail sales
performance: an empirical investigation”, Journal of retailing, Vol 80, pp 265-278.
Kotler, P (2010), Marketing Management 10, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Singh, (2016), “The Importance of Customer Satisfaction in relation to customer loyalty and
retention”, UCTI.WP-06-06, May 2006, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Zakaria, I., Rahman, B.A., Othman, A.K., Yunus, N.A.M., Dzulkipli, M.R. and Osman, M.A.F.,
2014. The relationship between loyalty program, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in
retail industry: A case study. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 129, pp.23-30.

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Appendix