Standing Out in a Season of Smart Spending
For many, Christmas remains the busiest time of the year. Whether you’re a shopper filling baskets or a retailer filling shelves, success during the holidays is all about anticipating needs, delighting customers, and delivering seamless experiences that make every interaction count.
But this year, the holiday landscape looks a little different.
According to PwC’s Holiday Outlook 2025, consumers are entering the season with a more cautious mindset: overall holiday spending is expected to decline by about 5%, marking the first dip since 2020. Shoppers are becoming more selective, value-conscious, and deliberate, choosing retailers who can offer both value and meaning. Experiences, convenience, and authenticity are taking centre stage, while impulse and excess spending are giving way to smart, intentional shopping.
For grocery retailers, this shift represents both a challenge and an opportunity.
While consumers tighten their budgets, they’re still investing in shared experiences: food, gatherings, and everyday indulgences that bring people together. The question isn’t whether they’ll spend; it’s where and why they’ll choose to do so. Those who can deliver personalised, digital, engaging, and rewarding shopping journeys — grounded in loyalty and local relevance — are more likely to “win Christmas.”
At Lobyco, our mission is to help retailers turn data into loyalty, engagement into action, and every customer moment into something meaningful. During the retail peak of the year, our partners use our technology to drive traffic, increase basket size, and strengthen relationships that last well beyond the holidays.
So, welcome to our 2025 series: Winning Christmas.
Throughout the Christmas season, we’ll spotlight some of our retail partners and show how they’re using digital loyalty, gamification, and personalised offers. Each story will highlight how innovation and customer insights can turn Christmas into a winning one.
Let’s dive into Central Co-op plans for winning Christmas.
About Central Co-op
Central Co-op is a member-owned retail co-operative serving communities across 23 counties from the Midlands to the East Coast - through more than 250 food stores, 165 funeral homes, 18 filling stations, post offices, florists, masonry outlets, a crematorium and a coffin factory.
Central Co-op has long focused on combining everyday value with local relevance and is one of the largest independent retailers in the UK, with over 400 trading outlets, a family of around 6,500 colleagues and more than 440,000 regular trading Members.
This Christmas, they are building on that member-first approach by using digital loyalty mechanics to drive engagement, incremental spend, and festive excitement throughout December.
Plans for ‘Winning Christmas’
Central Co-op’s festive strategy begins with a strong focus on daily engagement. From 1 to 24 December, they will launch a digital Advent experience in the app ‘The Countdown to Christmas’, offering Members a new prize opportunity each day. Rewards will vary across the season, ranging from food and drink coupons to seasonal non-food essentials such as wrapping paper, cards, and gift bags, alongside Reward ££s. The Countdown to Christmas game taps into a familiar Christmas ritual and gives Members a reason to return daily, building habit and anticipation right through to Christmas Eve.
Running in parallel, Central Co-op will continue their Weekend Wins game, designed to maintain momentum and drive sales in key meal-solution categories. Each weekend brings a fresh opportunity to engage Members around practical festive needs, with offers planned to match real shopping behaviour. A standout example is the intention to feature a curry sauce offer on the weekend before Christmas, perfectly timed to meet demand for the traditional British Boxing Day curry. It is a smart way to combine seasonal relevance with category uplift, especially in a year when shoppers are becoming more selective about where they spend.
Another key pillar is their use of 24 hour tactical coupons in the lead-up to and during the “Twixmas” period. These will be deployed strategically and reactively, based on availability and stock position. The aim is practical as well as commercial: to drive demand where needed and to help manage stock more effectively, reducing waste during a high-volume period. This flexibility allows Central Co-op to stay agile through December, which is increasingly important in a more unpredictable spending environment.
Check out the visuals below:
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Encouraging Incremental Spend Through Challenges
Central Co-op is also exploring Christmas-themed Challenges to encourage incremental spend across festive categories. The focus is on items that naturally rise in relevance during the season, including wrapping paper, cards, crackers, sausage and bacon, produce, and horticulture. These Challenges are intended to nudge Members towards additional purchases as they prepare for celebrations, supporting bigger baskets without relying purely on broad discounts.
Driving Reward ££s Engagement Before Christmas
Finally, Central Co-op is placing extra emphasis on helping Members use their Reward ££s balance, ensuring those rewards translate into real festive value. Communications began last week, educating Members on how to check and spend their balance if they have not already done so. Next week, this will evolve into more targeted messaging based on each Member’s Reward ££s pot. Members with smaller balances will be encouraged to treat themselves to a festive extra, while those with larger balances will be shown how rewards can meaningfully contribute to the full Christmas shop. It is a timely reminder of value at a point when many households are reassessing budgets and planning carefully for the season.
Winning Christmas – The Central Co-op Way
With daily Advent prizes, weekend gamification, agile 24 hour coupons, and festive Challenges, Central Co-op is creating a Christmas strategy designed around real member behaviour. The plan blends excitement with practicality, driving repeat engagement while supporting broader baskets and meaningful redemption. In a year shaped by more cautious, value-led shopping, Central Co-op is meeting Members with relevance and reward at exactly the right moments, positioning themselves strongly to win Christmas.
