Consumers’ Perspective on Loyalty Programmes and its Influence on Purchasing Decisions : A study on fast-fashion retailers’ consumers in the Swedish market

Sammanfattning: Background: With apparel and clothing being one of the most highly consumed products for everyday life, businesses within the fashion industry have much demand. In order to gain leverage in a competitive market, many retailers have different strategies and loyalty programmes have been an attractive way for customer relationship management.    Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to provide additional understanding of fast-fashion retailers’ consumer behaviour, while focusing on their perceptions towards loyalty programmes as an influencing purchasing factor. This study can be beneficial for fast-fashion retailer businesses seeking to improve their loyalty programmes for the development of customer retention.  Method: The study is conducted with a qualitative research design through conducting 16 interviews, with deductive reasonings to understand the phenomenon. The theoretical framework is interpretivism, which allows exploratory type of research to explore the paper’s purpose. For findings and analysis, thematic analysis was adopted to allow flexibility in the modification of data collection and research design.  Conclusion: This study’s findings and analysis identified three main themes linked to customer’s perception towards loyalty programmes: shopping criteria, benefit perception, and behavioural impulse. This suggests that customers do not regard loyalty programmes as an influential factor in their purchasing decision, but rather a second thought. By doing so, the purpose of loyalty programmes is hindered, resulting in repetitive purchasing behaviour being affected as well.