Sainsbury's loyalty card is set to "leapfrog" Tesco's by analysing the shopping habits of millions more consumers than its rival, according to the man who used to run Clubcard.

This summer Peter Gleason left Dunnhumby, the company that manages Tesco Clubcard, to join Nectar operator LMG as managing director of its new insight and communications division.

The new division will take over analysis of Sainsbury's EpoS data from TNS in the new year.

This will link the loyalty card's database directly with customers' exact spending pattern through a new high-speed website portal.

According to Gleason, the system will be so fast in its data processing that it will allow LMG to analyse the shopping behaviour of all 10 million Nectar Card holders for the first time.

Dunnhumby analyses the behaviour of 10% of the 16 million Clubcard holders and extrapolates its findings.

"We are building our portal from scratch using all the latest technology," said Gleason. "It will be faster and more accurate than the Dunnhumby system and leapfrog over Dunnhumby's technology.

He added: "The data analysis will help Sainsbury's put in the right ranging and product assortment in store, and provide the information to ensure that promotions are more effective, better targeted, and improve availability."

Topics