Sprouts Farmers Market has made it abundantly clear that it wants nothing to do with price-sensitive “coupon clippers.” So why is it rewarding its loyal customers with… coupons?
Two years in the making, the natural and organic grocer has now completed the national rollout of its new Sprouts Rewards loyalty program. It works like many other loyalty programs, awarding points for purchases that can be redeemed for dollars off your next order, plus “perks and personalized offers” – including “member-only digital coupons.”
That’s something of a turnaround for Sprouts, whose management has routinely disparaged coupons and the shoppers who use them.
Back in 2020, long before there was talk of launching a loyalty program, Sprouts CEO Jack Sinclair derided deal-seekers and said they’re not the sort that Sprouts wants to attract. He set a goal of “getting away from those types of customers,” whom he called “promiscuous” and “unprofitable,” “particularly those coupon clippers.”
By last summer, Sinclair declared the mission had been accomplished. “I think we lost the coupon clippers long ago,” he told investors. Instead, Sprouts’ core customers were remaining loyal, shopping at Sprouts for premium and specialty items they couldn’t find elsewhere, and happily paying higher prices for them. “We’re well away from that type of customer that’s responding to that kind of coupon clipping that we had many years ago,” Sinclair said.
By that time, Sprouts had already begun rolling out Sprouts Rewards in a handful of stores. “We want people to feel very special by being part of this kind of loyalty club,” Sinclair said. Of course, the real reason for launching a loyalty program is not just to reward customers, but to reward Sprouts. “We expect to see them visit more often and add more items to their baskets,” Sinclair said of loyalty program members.
As a specialty grocer, “our customers are not quite as frequent as your conventional grocery shopper,” Chief Operating Officer Nick Konat said. So the goal of the loyalty program is to encourage them to visit more, and buy more while they’re there. And if that enticement needs to come in the form of coupons and deals, so be it. Just as long as those deals are going to loyal shoppers, and not “those coupon clippers.”
Besides, coupons and discounts are only part of what Sprouts Rewards has to offer. Members are also promised “good-for-you, member-only recipes,” “expert-led wellness classes,” and early access to new brands and products.
Now that they’ve chased away the couponers, Sprouts says its customers are more discerning. “They define value through quality, innovation, freshness and health,” and not just prices, Konat said. So “that’s what we continue to lean in on.”
And so far, Sinclar said, it seems to be working. “Although it’s still early in the program, we are observing encouraging indications of increased shopping frequency and sales per customer,” he said.
So if you’re looking for recipes and wellness classes, Sprouts Rewards may be for you. If it’s the discounts and digital coupons that entice you to join, that’s okay too – just don’t let Sprouts know you’re one of “those coupon clippers.”
Image source: Sprouts
This story is almost ironic enough to write itself. After years of Sprouts loudly distancing itself from “coupon clippers” and insisting that discounts attract the wrong kind of customer, they’ve now rolled out… a loyalty program full of digital coupons and personalized deals.
It’s a pretty big shift from the days when the CEO was bragging about chasing away bargain hunters. But at the end of the day, loyalty programs aren’t charity—they’re data engines. If Sprouts wants shoppers to visit more often and spend more per trip, targeted offers are the fastest way to make that happen, whether they want to admit it or not.
What’s funny is the messaging. They still insist their shoppers “define value through quality, innovation, and health,” not price—yet the first strategy they rolled out to boost frequency and basket size was, of course, discounts. It just goes to show that even premium brands eventually have to play the value game.
If the perks like recipes and wellness classes appeal to customers, great. But let’s be honest: the digital coupons will probably be the biggest driver of signups. And Sprouts might discover that the very shoppers they once dismissed are the ones who end up engaging most with their program.