Off we go on our journey to bring a great Tesco Clubcard experience directly to your mobile phone!
Clubcard is Tesco’s way of saying thank you for shopping with us – it’s easy – simply scan your Clubcard every time you shop. For every £1 you spend on qualifying products at Tesco, whether in-store or online, we’ll reward you 2 Clubcard points.
However if you’re like me, sometimes your Tesco Clubcard sometimes doesn’t quite make it to your wallet, or it’s slipped down the bottom of your bag and you can’t find it. The good news is that my iPhone is always on me so wouldn’t it be a great idea if it could quickly display the barcode of my Clubcard when I’m next at the checkout? The first version of this application is quite simply to do that – bring a virtual version of your Clubcard to your iPhone or iPod Touch.
Start the application the first time, type in your Clubcard details, and from then on whenever you start the app, it quickly displays the barcode seen on your plastic card which can be scanned at our checkouts. No more worries about losing points.
That’s just the start of the journey – we intend to do lots more with this app in the future, such as display your points balance – we’re even looking at finding ways of bring e-vouchers straight to your Clubcard app so you can use them at the checkout directly from your phone.
The application was written by Ben Martin, a member of the ‘Group Technology & Architecture’ team (Tesco PLC’s larger version of Tesco.com’s R&D team!) and I think he’s done a great job as well as being excited by what he can bring to the app in terms of new features as he continues work on this project with the Clubcard team.
Anticipating your questions:
So the application just displays the barcode? Can’t it do anything else?
Not in this very first version. The aim is that, because you love your iPhone you are more likely to have it on you when you approach the Tesco checkout, so it is simple to display the barcode and earn Clubcard points. Once you have this application on your iPhone we will be introducing more features to it over the coming weeks and months.
I notice that the account for this app is “Tesco PLC” and not “Tesco.com R&D Team”. Do you have two accounts now?
Yes we do! Our work with Tesco Finder and Tesco Wine Finder has excited people all over Tesco, and a cross-functional team is being put together to create great applications for all kinds of Tesco “stuff” – indeed a complete mobile and device strategy that goes way beyond iPhone. We want to be able separate mainstream production applications from prototyping apps of the sort we have launched (and will launch) under the Tesco.com R&D Team banner, thus the launch of the Tesco PLC account. We’ll use this difference across all ‘app stores’ and downloads for your phone or device, so you know what to expect.
The difference is that Tesco PLC apps are fully supported production-quality creations, and Tesco.com R&D Team apps are experimental prototypes that we bravely try out on you to see what you think, notwithstanding the fact that we intend these apps to have a nice long shelf life and we are happy to support them within the team.
The application is not accepting my Staff Privilege Clubcard number or Republic of Ireland Clubcard number. Why?
The number ranges are different for these Clubcards and we can’t verify them at the moment. We’ll bring you this feature very soon, though.
How do I find the Tesco Clubcard app?
Go to the App Store on iTunes or your iPhone and search ‘Tesco” or “Tesco Clubcard”. If iTunes is installed on the computer on which you are reading this entry, try this link: