It is offering $80 million a year savings for Kiwis but the 3.5 million users of the new Onecard, the biggest loyalty card in New Zealand history, need to know how to get the best out of it.
The card, formed by Countdown and AA Smartfuel, comes into being on Monday and gives people the ability to cut both grocery and fuel bills. Susan D'lima, Countdown's head of loyalty, says "smart shoppers" will soon learn how to take advantage of the three-pronged attack.
The new Onecard gives customers three ways to save: First, Club Prices when swiping a Onecard at Countdown. They can also swipe at any AA Smartfuel participating service station and automatically reduce their fuel bill by 6c a litre (up to 50 litres) with a minimum $40 spend, without having to spend anything at the supermarket.
The third way offers a choice for cardholders; they can decide whether to accumulate Onecard points at Countdown to earn reward vouchers to be spent in-store (one point is earned for every $10 spent; every 200 points earns a $15 rewards voucher), or to earn additional AA Smartfuel discounts on fuel.
Consider two fictional families:
Family A
A busy two-adult, two-teenagers unit spend about $200 a week on groceries and drive to work, school and sport. They use Onecard for price discounts and accumulate fuel discounts of 6c per litre when they spend a minimum of $40 on fuel each week. They also accumulate an extra 6c per litre each week for spending $200 each week at Countdown on groceries. For their 50-litre station wagon, they save 48c per litre per month - around $24 a month.
Family B
City-based, two adults and two kids under four. They use their car infrequently, filling up about twice a month. They choose to earn Onecard rewards vouchers, putting their $200 weekly grocery bill to work by earning a $15 voucher every 10 weeks (the vouchers are sent out quarterly) - plus getting 6c per litre off at the AA Smartfuel gas stations. They save $3 per tank of fuel or, in their case, about $6 a month as well as their reward vouchers.
People can switch between fuel and grocery rewards at any time, for a road trip or ahead of a big Christmas shop for example. A family can combine their purchasing power to accumulate fuel or grocery savings faster and a flat can earn quickly as a group even when they go shopping individually, putting reward vouchers to use buying communal products for the flat - like detergent, for example.
Onecard has issued $238m in Countdown reward vouchers over the last 10 years; D'lima says "many millions" more have been saved through club prices at the checkout. AA Smartfuel director Ian Sutcliffe says his customers are earning about $60m in fuel discounts a year, many saving hundreds of dollars individually, at BP and Caltex stations.
That means holders of the new Onecard should benefit by a total of over $80m a year in savings at the pump and the popular supermarket.
"That's what people find important," she says. "Food and fuel rate high in the expenditure of any household and the new Onecard not only makes them cheaper but easier to access. The new Onecard is designed to make it really simple for shoppers to get rewards.
"This change has been customer-driven. They wanted grocery discounts and fuel but didn't like having to carry bits of paper around [the previous system required presentation of Countdown dockets to gain fuel savings]. We solved that by putting everything in one card."
Sutcliffe says: "AA Smartfuel cardholders have wanted a grocery partnership for some time - and now we can broaden our network to over 1500 retail outlets around the country."
The 1.8m Onecard users will join AA Smartfuel's 2.2m cardholders and D'lima says: "We estimate about 500,000 people already have both cards - meaning a total of about 3.5m cardholders, easily the biggest in the country."
The previous biggest loyalty programme, Fly Buys, claims more than 2.4m cardholders but D'lima says she expects Onecard to become the most-used card in Kiwi wallets behind "whatever payment card people use - ATM cards or credit cards."
Onecard users who have received Onecard reward vouchers in the last year and all AA members will be sent a new, co-branded card; others can simply pick a new Onecard up at Countdown or BP and Caltex stations from Monday.
For more information: www.countdown.co.nz/onecard