Welcome to the latest in our Power of Loyalty series, where we focus on the loyalty strategies of major retailers to see what's working, what isn't, and what the rest of us can learn from it. This time: Lidl. 

Lidl built its entire identity on not needing loyalty schemes. No-frills stores, rock-bottom prices, minimal marketing spend – the pitch was always "we save you money, so you don't need points." So, it's worth noting that Lidl now runs one of the largest customer loyalty platforms on the planet. Understanding how a discount retailer ended up here, and what success it has had, tells us a lot about where grocery loyalty is heading generally. 

Background and history 

Lidl Plus began life quietly, testing in Zaragoza, Spain, before rolling out more broadly. Sources differ slightly on the exact date depending on market – the app hit Google Play in July 2017, with wider European rollout following through 2018 – but the shape of the early product was consistent everywhere: a store finder, digital leaflets, digital receipts, and eventually Lidl Pay, bolted onto a simple coupon mechanic rather than a points system. 

That coupon-based approach became the programme's signature for years. Rather than accumulating points redeemable for money-off, shoppers unlocked automatic rewards at fixed monthly spending thresholds – a free bakery item at £10spend, free fruit or veg at £50 spend, a chocolate bar at £100 spend, and so on, capped with a 10% discount voucher at £250 spend in the UK's "Coupon Plus" version. It was simple, low-friction, and didn't require shoppers to understand a points economy at all. 

Growth was steady rather than explosive for years, but it has accelerated sharply of late. The app launched in five test countries in February 2018 and added features over time including shopping lists, digital tickets, click-and-collect, and Scan & Go [1]. By 2025 it had passed 100 million users. In July 2026, Lidl completed its global rollout with a US launch, taking the platform to more than 120 million users across 32 countries, every market where Lidl has stores [2]. 

The biggest shift came in 2026. Lidl began systematically dismantling its coupon-tier model in favour of a conventional points scheme, market by market. Switzerland, Ireland, the UK, Italy and the Netherlands led the way, followed by Germany [3], with sister chain Kaufland (also part of the Schwarz Group) moving to a harmonised one-point-per-euro mechanic slightly earlier. In the UK, "Lidl Plus Points" replaced "Coupon Plus" on 5 May 2026. 

The numbers 

A few statistics stand out: 

• Scale: 120+ million users globally, spanning 32 countries as of July 2026. 

• UK member growth (year to July 2025): Lidl disclosed that its number of monthly active users grew by 34.9% in the 12 months to July 2025, as it rolled out features like Lidl Pay and personalised offers [10].  

• Daily engagement (year on year to May 2026): Even through the disruption of the UK's points switchover, daily active users on Lidl Plus were up 20% year on year in May 2026, averaging 1.27 million users a day, with Lidl's own internal data showing a further 4% month-on-month lift, partly credited to gamified campaigns like a fruit-and-veg scratchcard [5]. 

• Engagement in the UK: The proportion of Lidl shopping trips involving a claimed loyalty reward more than doubled from 26% in March 2025 to 57% in the four weeks to 17 May 2026, staying above 50% since August 2025 and peaking at 59% in January 2026 [4]. 

• Market share: Lidl's UK sales rose 8.6% year-on-year in the 12 weeks to 14 June 2026, pushing market share to 8.7% for the first time and making it the fastest-growing bricks-and-mortar supermarket in every four-weekly Worldpanel update since October 2023 [4]. 

What's worked 

Reach without ambiguity. Lidl's rewards were never trying to be sophisticated. A free croissant at £10 spend is instantly understood, requires no maths, and reinforces the brand's core promise – you get more for less – every time it fires. That simplicity is very plausibly why loyalty engagement climbed so fast without much marketing muscle behind it. 

Treating the app as infrastructure, not an add-on. With digital receipts, Scan & Go, Lidl Pay, EV charging point search, and click-and-collect, Lidl built genuine utility into the app well beyond discounts, so people opened it for reasons unrelated to rewards. That's a stronger retention mechanic than points alone, because it embeds the app into everyday habits. 

Speed of global rollout. Going from a single-city pilot to 32 countries and 120 million users, culminating in a US launch that made Lidl Plus a genuinely global "one platform, millions of customers" ecosystem [6], is a rare feat of execution for a company that historically resisted anything resembling CRM. 

It's translating into commercial results. The correlation between rising reward redemption and Lidl's run as the UK's fastest-growing supermarket is hard to ignore, even allowing for other factors like store expansion and the cost-of-living backdrop. 

Where it's stumbled 

The points switchover has been genuinely unpopular. UK shoppers have been vocal that the new points scheme is a worse deal than what it replaced. Under the old Coupon Plus, hitting £250 of spend in a month unlocked rewards worth up to roughly 8%; under Lidl Plus Points, the base earn rate is 1 point per £1, each worth 1p — a 1% return, matching Tesco Clubcard but below what heavy Lidl shoppers were used to [7]. The pain au chocolat that needed £10 of spend now effectively requires £70 [7]. Consumer champions and shopper communities picked up on this quickly, and the coverage was largely negative. 

Standardisation has cost some households real value. Moving from a tiered, automatic system to a flatter, opt-in points system inevitably redistributes value. Light shoppers may do fine, but previously loyal high spenders lost out relative to the old scheme. That's a difficult trade-off for a brand whose entire promise is value for money. 

Data and consent friction. Lidl has faced scrutiny in Europe over how clearly it explains data use inside the app. Germany's Federation of Consumer Organisations sued Lidl, arguing it didn't adequately disclose that data shared in exchange for discounts and coupons was also used for market research, not just personalised advertising [8], a test case with implications well beyond Lidl. As Lidl leans further into retail media (it struck a data partnership with Criteo for its German site in May 2026), this kind of scrutiny is likely to intensify, not fade. 

US uncertainty. Lidl's core US retail business has struggled to gain traction relative to Aldi's American footprint, expanding far more slowly than planned and cycling through leadership. Layering a loyalty app onto a business that hasn't yet cracked brand awareness in its own market (Lidl found more than 40% of people in parts of the US where it operates didn't know it was a grocery company [9]) is a bet that the app itself can help solve an awareness problem it didn't create. 

Room for improvement 

• Rebuild trust around the value exchange. The backlash to the points switchover suggests Lidl underestimated how attached shoppers were to the old scheme's simplicity and generosity. A clearer "why this is better for you" narrative – or a more generous transition period – would have softened the landing. 

• Tiered recognition for its best customers. A flat 1p-per-point system treats a £20-a-week shopper the same as a £250-a-week one. Reintroducing some form of tiering or streak-based bonus could recapture the loyalty of Lidl's heaviest spenders without abandoning the simplicity of points. 

• Sharper, more proactive transparency on data use. Given the German legal challenge, Lidl has an opportunity to lead on data transparency rather than just defend against it, particularly as retail media partnerships (like the Criteo deal) mean customer data is increasingly monetised beyond the original loyalty relationship. 

• Consistency across markets. Running different mechanics in different countries during a multi-year transition creates confusion for a genuinely pan-European shopper base and makes it harder to communicate the programme's value in one clear story. 

Future-proofing customer engagement 

Lidl's direction of travel is clear even if execution has been bumpy: fewer discrete national coupon schemes, one unified points currency, and an app that increasingly functions as the front door to the whole retail relationship (payments, self-scanning, EV charging, and now points), all under one login. The stated logic is as much about data as discounts: routing every transaction through a single customer ID lets Lidl manage assortment, personalise promotions, and monetise retail media more precisely [3]. 

Two trials point to where this goes next. Lidl & Go, a scan-as-you-shop trial letting customers track spend in real time via the app before checkout, has expanded from a handful of stores to dozens across the UK [6], folding frictionless shopping into the same platform as loyalty. And Lidl's own leadership has framed the newly unified global platform explicitly around AI-driven personalisation; "new value through AI on one shared platform," as one Lidl International board member put it [2]. 

For a business built on refusing to play the loyalty game, Lidl has ended up making a fairly conventional bet: that the future of grocery retention isn't cheap prices alone, but cheap prices plus a data-rich, increasingly personalised digital relationship. The early engagement numbers suggest customers are willing to go along with it. Whether they stay willing depends on Lidl closing the trust gap it's just opened, proving that "unified" doesn't mean "worse value," and that all this data is working as hard for the shopper as it clearly is for Lidl. 

Start, stop, continue 

To wrap up, here are five salient points covering the successes, challenges and opportunities for improvement of the Lidl Plus loyalty programme in the UK: 

1. Success – Strong customer engagement and digital adoption 
   Lidl Plus has successfully encouraged customers to use its app by offering personalised coupons, digital receipts and exclusive discounts. This has increased customer engagement while reducing reliance on paper vouchers. 

2. Success – Valuable customer data and personalisation 
   The programme provides Lidl with detailed insights into shopping behaviour, allowing the retailer to tailor offers, improve promotional effectiveness and strengthen customer loyalty through more relevant rewards. 

3. Challenge – Limited reward structure compared with competitors  
   Unlike some supermarket loyalty schemes, Lidl Plus does not offer a points-based system or long-term reward accumulation. This can make the programme feel less rewarding for customers who shop regularly. 

4. Challenge – Dependence on smartphone use 
   The scheme is entirely app-based, which may exclude customers who do not own smartphones or are less confident using digital technology, reducing accessibility for some shopper groups. 

5. Room for improvement – Opportunity to enhance loyalty and retention  
   Lidl could strengthen the programme by introducing tiered rewards, more personalised offers based on purchasing habits and additional partner benefits. These enhancements could increase customer retention and encourage higher spending over time. 

What Next?  

Stream Loyalty helps customers design and build loyalty programmes that deliver lasting customer relationships.  

Programmes such as Lidl Plus demonstrate what is possible when engagement and rewards are brought together into a single, cohesive ecosystem to scale membership and sales. However, delivering this level of sophistication requires the right infrastructure behind the scenes. This is where LoyaltyStream adds significant value.  

LoyaltyStream provides all the core components needed to design and manage successful loyalty programmes within one platform. From configurable earn-and-burn mechanics and flexible reward catalogues to integrated learning environments through its Academy module, it enables businesses to incentivise both behavioural and transactional actions seamlessly. Crucially, it removes operational complexity, allowing teams to launch quickly, automate key processes, and scale globally without heavy internal resource.  

In practical terms, a business could replicate a Lidl Plus model, the result is a fully joined-up experience that not only drives engagement but also delivers measurable commercial outcomes without the need for multiple systems or manual programme management.  

If you are looking for input and advice on building a high-impact successful loyalty programme, or transform or re-platform an existing one, visit the Stream Loyalty website to see what we offer and book a discovery meeting with one of ourspecialist loyalty team. Alternatively, read more from The Power of Loyalty series on Stream Loyalty’s blog page. 

References 

1. RetailDetail EU — "Lidl Plus celebrates 100 million users" 
2. Retail Technology Innovation Hub — "Lidl Plus goes global with US launch as retailer's app hits 120+ million users across 32 countries", July 2026 
3. ixtenso — "From discount coupons to points: Lidl overhauls its loyalty programme across Europe", May 2026 
4. The Grocer — "Lidl loyalty rewards claimed in over half of shopping trips", July 2026 
5. The Grocer — "Lidl Plus app users rise 20% despite loyalty scheme changes", June 2026 
6. Retail Technology Innovation Hub — "Hello, America! Loyalty and rewards programme Lidl Plus set to launch in USA this week", June 2026 
7. hotminute.co.uk — "Lidl Plus Points: new UK loyalty scheme weaker than before", May 2026 
8. RetailDetail EU — "Consumer organisation sues Lidl for Plus app" 
9. Grocery Dive — "Lidl US prepares to roll out new loyalty program", June 2026 
10. The Grocer — "Lidl Plus now UK's fourth most popular loyalty scheme", January 2026