You’ve invested heavily in launching your loyalty program. The sign-ups poured in, engagement was high, and sales saw a lift. But as many grocers discover, momentum can fade fast—especially once the novelty wears off.

The reason is simple: loyalty programs are designed to reward existing behavior. Your best customers keep showing up, but your uncommitted customers—the ones who shop with you occasionally and spend plenty elsewhere—still split their baskets across multiple stores. Upside’s analysis shows that even after joining a loyalty program, many customers continue to cross-shop, participating in multiple programs and dividing their spend.

The good news? There’s a proven way to keep these shoppers coming back.

Start with the right target: uncommitted customers

Uncommitted customers are your biggest untapped growth lever. They’re already familiar with your store, but they haven’t made you their first choice. That means you can influence their habits.

Even small changes make a big difference: getting these shoppers to visit just one more time each month can nearly double the average grocer’s annual revenue from this group.

Why loyalty alone won’t get you there

It’s not that loyalty programs don’t work—they do. They just can’t carry the load by themselves when it comes to changing shopping patterns.

Customers often join multiple loyalty programs and choose where to shop based on convenience, price, and offers in the moment. Without a complementary strategy to influence those decisions, as many as 60% of new customers never return after their first visit (Winning the Uncommitted Customer report).

Layer in personalized promotions

The fastest way to influence uncommitted customers is with personalized promotions—targeted, cash-back offers based on individual shopping behavior.

These aren’t one-size-fits-all discounts. They’re offers that speak directly to each shopper’s preferences, whether that’s a favorite product category or a trip occasion you know you can win. About 85% of customers driven by personalized promotions are new or uncommitted, and once they start earning rewards, they visit more often and are more likely to join your loyalty program.

Even better: when shoppers engage with both loyalty and personalized promotions, they’re 45% more valuable in their first year than similar customers who don’t.

Reinforce the second trip quickly

The first visit is just the start. The goal is to turn it into a habit.

Pairing loyalty with personalized promotions reduces the first-visit drop-off rate from 60% to just 8%. The key is to re-engage shoppers quickly after that initial trip—while they’re still thinking about your store.

Schnucks: a real-world example

Schnucks, a regional grocer with over 1.8 million loyalty members, wanted to bring more uncommitted customers into their program and keep them shopping more often.

By pairing Schnucks Rewards with Upside’s personalized promotions and broader marketplace reach, they:

• Achieved a 46% ROI from a 2% incremental sales lift
• Increased visit frequency by 24% and basket size by 5%
• Added thousands of new Schnucks Rewards members through seamless integration

The bottom line for grocery leaders

Launching a loyalty program is a strong first step, but it’s just the start. To keep growth going—and to capture the uncommitted customer opportunity—you need to influence where and how often shoppers choose to buy.

Pairing loyalty with personalized promotions helps you win those extra trips, build repeat behavior early, and maximize your loyalty ROI without steep discounting. For grocers, it’s the difference between a program that loses steam after launch and one that delivers profitable growth year after year.