A 3-minute assessment that scores your readiness to identify, reward, and retain your most valuable customers. Built around a three-layer model that has already been proven in adjacent retail categories. Designed for executive decision-makers in building materials.
In October 2025, Dis-Chem replaced its 23-year-old loyalty card with Better Rewards. The mechanic was simple: supplier-funded instant discounts at the till. In 17 weeks, retail revenue grew 10.4%, 550,000 new shoppers walked in, and participating brands saw volume growth of 20.9%.
The mechanic transfers to building materials. The economics are the same. Suppliers fund the discount in exchange for measurable access to identified buyers. But the customer behaviour is completely different. Dis-Chem customers visit weekly and buy consumables they will replace next week. Building materials customers visit monthly over a 12-18 month project and buy things they will never buy again. That difference changes everything about how you design the programme, how you fund it, and how you measure it.
This assessment scores your readiness across five dimensions: Identity, Segmentation, Lifecycle, Funding, and Delivery. Each one maps to a specific layer of the programme model.
Dis-Chem's Better Rewards works because every member swipes a card. That swipe creates an identity. Without identity, there is no data, no segmentation, and no way to measure whether a programme is working. In building materials, the majority of customers pay cash and leave anonymous.
Contractors are the highest-value customers in building materials. They visit frequently, buy in volume, and influence which brands get specified on projects. But if you cannot identify them, you cannot reward them differently from a weekend DIYer buying R200 of paint.
Average basket size dropped from R737 to R729 in FY2025. The driver was a shift in customer mix, more retail shoppers, fewer bakkie builders. That is not a pricing problem. It is a visibility problem. If you cannot see the mix shifting, you cannot respond to it.
In Dis-Chem's model, every member gets the same base discount. But the Capitec banking layer adds extra value for a specific segment. Building materials needs a different kind of tiering. A contractor spending R250K a year is a fundamentally different customer from a weekend DIYer. Treating them identically means under-serving the one who matters most.
This is the fundamental difference between building materials and pharmacy. Dis-Chem customers replenish. They run out of something and buy it again. Building materials customers progress. They move through project phases over 12-18 months. If you lose them at phase three, a competitor gets phases four through twelve.
In Dis-Chem's model, the customer comes back naturally within a week because they consume what they bought. In building materials, the gap between visits might be four to six weeks. That gap is where customers defect. If there is no communication between visits, the next trip goes to whichever store is most convenient or top of mind.
Dis-Chem's programme is self-funding. Over 170 brands co-fund the 10% discount because they get measurable access to identified buyers. Building materials suppliers like PPC, AfriSam, Duram, and Harvey compete just as fiercely for preference. The difference is that in pharmacy the co-funding buys weekly basket frequency. In building materials, it buys specification loyalty. Once a builder starts with PPC, they finish with PPC. That is worth funding.
Capitec gives its cardholders 1% cashback at Cashbuild. African Bank gives 1.5% in Audacious Rewards. Both banks own the data, own the relationship, and brand the reward as theirs. Dis-Chem flipped this model. When a Capitec cardholder pays at Dis-Chem, they get an extra 5% off branded as part of Dis-Chem's programme. The reward lives inside the retailer's world, not the bank's.
The reason the Dis-Chem till slip works so well is speed. The customer sees "AfriSam discount R146.95" while they are still standing at the counter. The saving is real, visible, and immediate. No points to accumulate. No voucher to come back for. No app to download. That instant gratification is what creates the card-swipe habit.
Dis-Chem's Better Rewards runs across 260+ stores with a unified system. Every swipe, every discount, every brand is tracked and reported. For building materials, the system needs to do the same thing but also handle project lifecycle tracking, contractor tiering, and banking partner integrations. That is a different level of complexity.
This helps us tailor recommendations. A supplier co-funded model significantly reduces the retailer's own cost because the brands fund the customer-facing discount. The retailer's investment is primarily in the technology, the partner management, and the programme design.
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When Dis-Chem launched Better Rewards in October 2025, retail revenue grew 10.4% in 17 weeks. 550,000 new shoppers entered the brand. Participating brands saw volume growth of 20.9%. R410 million was returned to customers, on track for R1.5 billion in year one. The mechanic was simple: supplier-funded instant discounts at the till.
The mechanic transfers to building materials. The economics are the same. Suppliers fund the discount in exchange for measurable access to identified buyers. But the customer behaviour is fundamentally different. Pharmacy is replenishment: buy, consume, repeat weekly. Building materials is progression: buy foundation, then walls, then roof, then plumbing, over 12-18 months. You do not need to drive weekly frequency. You need to own the project.
Average basket dropped from R737 to R729 in FY2025. The cause was a shift in customer mix. More retail shoppers. Fewer bakkie builders. Transaction volumes grew 5.8%, which is healthy. But volume growth from smaller baskets is less profitable than the same revenue from fewer, larger baskets.
A programme that identifies bakkie builders and contractors, recognises their cumulative spend, and rewards project milestones would give high-value customers a reason to consolidate at one retailer instead of splitting across Cashbuild, Builders, and Build It. That consolidation is where basket size recovers.
Capitec gives its cardholders 1% cashback at Cashbuild. African Bank gives 1.5% in Audacious Rewards. Both banks benefit from the foot traffic. Both banks own the customer data. Both banks own the relationship. The customer thanks Capitec, not Cashbuild.
Dis-Chem showed how to flip this. When a Capitec cardholder pays at Dis-Chem, the extra 5% is experienced as part of the Dis-Chem programme. The customer swipes the Dis-Chem card. The saving says "Better Rewards" on the slip. The bank co-funds, but the retailer owns the moment. Building materials needs the same inversion.
In the Dis-Chem model, over 170 brands co-fund the discount because they get something they cannot get anywhere else: direct, measurable access to identified buyers. PPC and AfriSam compete fiercely for contractor preference. Currently, neither brand can see who is buying their product at which store, how often, or in what quantities. A supplier co-funded programme gives them that visibility.
The co-funding value proposition is different though. In pharmacy, suppliers buy weekly frequency. In building materials, they buy specification loyalty. Once a builder starts a project with PPC cement, they finish with PPC. The brand that gets specified at foundation stage owns the entire project. That specification moment is what building materials suppliers would fund.
A homeowner building a two-bedroom house through a programme like Zakhelikhaya might spend R200,000 over 12-18 months. Foundation, walls, roof, plumbing, electrical, finishes, paint. That is 12-18 separate purchase occasions. If a competitor captures the customer at visit four, they keep them for visits five through eighteen.
But the value does not end at the build. That same homeowner will maintain, extend, and improve that property for decades. The Zakhelikhaya customer is already in the store. The payment card is already in their hand. The question is whether a programme connects today's R3,000 cement purchase to next month's R5,000 in bricks, next year's room extension, and the referral to a neighbour who is about to start building.