Are Loyalty Program Exclusive Deals Actually Better?
“Members’ price” labels now sit next to many shelf prices. The message is that joining is the smart choice and that non-members are paying too much. Many shoppers suspect the opposite: that the “normal” price has been nudged up so that the member price looks like a bargain.
The honest answer
The best evidence on this comes from the UK competition regulator, which in 2024 examined around 50,000 member-priced products across five large supermarkets. Its findings are reassuring in some ways and cautionary in others.
Most member prices are real discounts. The regulator found that 92% of member prices were genuine discounts against the non-member price, with an average saving of around 17–25% on the items concerned. Member-priced sales made up about 22% of grocery revenue at the retailers studied, and offers typically lasted 17–26 days.
But “member price” doesn’t mean “best price”. The same review found member prices weren’t always the cheapest option on the market. A product can be genuinely cheaper for members at one shop and still cost less, for everyone, somewhere else.
Shoppers remain sceptical. In the regulator’s survey, 40% didn’t trust that member prices were genuine savings, 55% believed non-member prices were inflated during promotions, and 43% thought it unfair that non-members pay more.
Not everyone can take part equally. The regulator also flagged that app-only member pricing can disadvantage older shoppers and people without smartphones.
Here is how deep member-only deals typically go:
| Member-only deal | Lowest | Typical | Highest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saving on the items concerned | about 10% (monthly “10% off” member perks) | 17–25% on average (UK regulator review) | 25%+ on individual lines |
Paid memberships work differently again. They often give a flat member discount of around 10% or a small cashback, but you pay a fee first — roughly €40–100 a year in Europe — so the “exclusive” price only helps once your savings exceed what you paid.
How to judge a members’ deal in practice:
- Compare against other shops, not just the non-member price. The label tells you about one shop’s pricing, not the market.
- Check if it’s something you’d buy anyway. A discount on an item you didn’t need isn’t a saving.
- Count the cost of joining. Your data for a free scheme, or a fee for a paid one.
- Notice how long it lasts. Most offers run for a few weeks, then rotate.
The fair conclusion is that exclusive deals are often better for members than for non-members at the same shop, but they aren’t automatically better than your alternatives.
How Gamma Wallet handles it
Most Gamma reward models avoid the members’ price question entirely, because they don’t change the price.
Everyone pays the same price at the counter. In most reward models a shop can run with Gamma, products are sold at full price. The reward comes as reward credit — a promise of goods or services worth a stated amount at that shop — spendable on a later visit. A customer without the app pays exactly what you pay; you simply get credit on top.
Community pools never reduce prices. In a Community Purchase pool, every customer’s reward percentage rises as the group’s total purchases grow during the pool window. The reward is worked out when the pool closes and becomes credit then. No price is ever lowered, so there’s no second price tag to compare.
Where discounts do exist, they’re stated rules. A shop running Layered Discount uses tiers that give a percentage discount, applied when your code is scanned at the counter. A shop running Membership gives perks to members, and the shop assigns that membership at the counter. In both cases the terms are part of the reward contract the shop sets up for the pool.
Joining costs nothing. Gamma is free for shoppers, and it asks only for a nickname, a verified phone number, an email and a password, with no bank card linking.
Why Gamma is the system to choose
The market’s member pricing is a real saving with a hidden question attached: is the non-member price fair? Gamma’s approach sidesteps that question for most rewards.
- No two-tier shelf. Credit rewards leave the shelf price the same for everyone, so no one has reason to suspect the normal price was inflated.
- Rewards you can still compare. Because the shop’s price is unchanged, you can compare it with other shops as usual and treat Gamma credit as an extra.
- A bigger reward when more people shop. Instead of a fixed members’ discount, a community pool can grow everyone’s reward as the group total rises.
- No fee to earn back. Unlike paid memberships, there’s nothing to recover before a saving is real.
It depends on what you want: if the only thing that matters is the lowest price today, shopping around is still the best advice. If you shop at a local place regularly, credit that grows with your visits is a reward that doesn’t come at another shopper’s expense.
For more information, visit www.gamma-wallet.com or discover our services to see how each reward model works.
If you’d prefer rewards that don’t depend on a second price tag, download Gamma Wallet — it’s free. If you run a shop and want to reward regulars without cutting your prices, register your shop and start on the free tier.