Z Energy says still committed to Fly Buys

Z Energy petrol station. Photo / File

Z chief executive Mike Bennetts today said Z was "completely committed" to the future of Fly Buys, in which the company has a financial interest.

The fuel retailer has a 25 per cent stake in Loyalty New Zealand, which offers Fly Buys.

Media reports had earlier suggested Z was considering pulling out of Fly Buys, which is New Zealand's biggest loyalty programme.

"In the context of a conversation around changing loyalty programmes in New Zealand it has been completely misreported that Z is considering pulling out of Fly Buys," he said in a statement.

"Fly Buys is a very important part of Z's loyalty offer and I want to categorically state that Z is completely committed to Fly Buys," he said.

Separately, in today's annual results announcement, Z said it was looking at its supermarket coupon scheme.

"Loyalty offers are changing quickly, as are customers' preferences, and it's important we move with those trends and develop market leading offers. We are doing some work on Z's loyalty offer which we will update later in the year," Bennetts said.

This has resulted in Z and Progressive Enterprises - owner of the Countdown chain - agreeing not to renew their supermarket docket relationship. This will come to an end on July 31 this year.

Bennetts said the contract between Z and Progressive had constrained Z from offering discounts through its other commercial partnerships.

Z spokesman Jonathan Hill said the deciciopn to drop the coupon scheme was by mutual consent.

"Our view was that less and less people were using those supermarket dockets so less and les volume was associated with it," Hill said.

"We were seeing even less takeup of the big discounts offered," he sadi. "It was paper-based and it felt old," he said.

"We felt that the loyalty space was evolving pretty quickly so we called it a day," he said.
Z earlier reported a net profit after tax of the March year of $64 million, up $7 million rom the previous year.