Watchdog to investigate price cuts for UK supermarket loyalty-card holders

Regulator says that big discounts for members may be restricting competition and disadvantaging those outside the schemes

The competition watchdog is to investigate the effect on consumers of the rise of loyalty card price cuts amid concerns that they could limit competition and lead to price rises for shoppers not signed up to such marketing schemes.

Sainsbury’s began offering special discounts for its Nectar card holders in April when the Co-op also brought in members’ pricing on some products, while Tesco has ramped up use of its Clubcard discounts this year. Lidl launched a loyalty scheme in 2020 and updated it last year so that shoppers had to spend more to get the top level of discounts.