Selfridges Unlocked 2.0

Iconic UK retailer Selfridges has successfully upgraded its loyalty scheme, Selfridges Unlocked, developed by its outstanding in-house technology team in partnership with Mindera. Building on the success of the first version launched in 2023, the new Selfridges Unlocked 2.0 now rewards customers for time spent in store as well as purchases made.

Thanks to the innovative introduction of near field communication (NFC), customers just tap their virtual loyalty card on entry to earn ‘keys’, a nod to founder Harry Gordon Selfridge giving keys to the department store’s first customers in 1909. Customers can now clearly track their progress as they unlock progressively higher levels of the programme, reaping greater rewards. This new version directly addresses customer feedback for greater transparency of their progress through the scheme. Once they have collected 200 keys, customers can become a ‘Very Selfridges Person,’ or VSP, to unlock the best perks.

Building together

The long-standing partnership between the retailer and Mindera lies at the core of Selfridges Unlocked. Integral to the smooth and successful launch was multiple product teams working closely together in a truly agile culture, using cutting-edge technology to deliver extraordinary results.

From a technology perspective, a modern data engineering toolchain was deployed using a data build tool orchestrated with Airflow, bringing software engineering best practices to data transformation. Flexibility and scalability issues were avoided by deploying a MACH (microservices, API-first, cloud-native and headless) architecture rather than event-driven.

Near real-time data analytics helped minimise latency to deliver the best possible user experience. This was achieved by streaming operational events for Unlocked via an AWS event service, streaming into a data ingestion service, ultimately into a cloud data warehouse, then modelling them for analytics. Quality and reliability are built into the loyalty programme thanks to defined data contracts for the payloads, plus wired alerts on invalid events and service level agreement breaches end-to-end.

Seamless integration

Close collaboration with other areas of the business, including membership, backend development and data, was vital to the project’s success. Mindera’s developers and those of other suppliers, were seamlessly integrated into purpose-driven teams to work effectively together. All of which has contributed to the hugely positive reaction to the scheme from its customers. Selfridges and Mindera will continue to develop the programme, promising more customer benefits for keyholders coming soon.

Ross Beaumont, Director of Product and Technology at Selfridges.

“With an initiative of this complexity, which involved multiple business and technology teams, it was vital that we chose true partners that we could work with seamlessly, were prepared to challenge thinking, and shared the Selfridges vision and values,” said Ross Beaumont, Director of Product and Technology at Selfridges.

“Mindera met that brief at all stages of the development and subsequent support journey. Augmenting our knowledge, helping improve our software development lifecycle, and bringing best practice and innovation to make Selfridges Unlocked a real success. It’s a cornerstone of our unified commerce strategy that puts customers at its heart.”

Driven by behaviour

The smart strategy of rewarding keyholders for spending both their money and time with the iconic retailer sets Selfridges Unlocked 2.0 apart from the standard loyalty schemes. Rather than simply increasing their spend, customers are encouraged to engage more with the Selfridges universe of experiences.

This results in widening their spend, broadening the scope for revenue generation, and immersing them more deeply in the Selfridges brand. In turn this strengthens the bond with customers and further boosts loyalty, which is the Holy Grail in the current increasingly competitive retail landscape.

Get in touch with our Fashion Tech team to discuss developing your loyalty programme.