M&S exploring launch of "Sparks" loyalty card - source

LONDON, June 9 (Reuters) - British retailer Marks & Spencer (Other OTC: MAKSF - news) is looking into launching a card-based loyalty programme, provisionally called "Sparks", for its customers this year, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.

Reward cards, pioneered by Tesco (Xetra: 852647 - news) 's Clubcard two decades ago, are widespread throughout Britain's retail sector.

But unlike schemes run by many other chains, M&S's "Sparks" membership card would reward both M&S food and general merchandise customers with exclusive benefits and personalised offers, rather than being a purely transaction-based scheme where points are awarded for every pound spent, the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity as the matter isn't public.

If the trials go well, "Sparks" could be launched in the autumn.

The move follows the billions of pounds spent by M&S Chief Executive Marc Bolland on the redesign of products, stores, supply chain logistics and the firm's website to address decades of underinvestment in the 131-year-old business.

Having last year shifted the M&S website from a platform provided by Amazon to its own platform, the firm now has better customer insight. That has encouraged M&S to try to capitalise on a traditionally strong fanbase among shoppers.

"At our recent prelims presentation (May 20 results) we said that being more in-touch with our customers was one of our priorities for the year ahead. However, we would not comment on rumour and speculation about future activity," M&S said in a statement when asked by Reuters for comment.

Last month, M&S raised hopes it has rediscovered a winning formula by reporting a rise in annual profit for the first time in four years and pledged to return excess cash to shareholders.

Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) in the firm, up 28 percent over the last nine months, were down 0.3 percent at 555.5 pence at 1034 GMT, valuing the business at about 9.1 billion pounds ($13.9 billion).

($1 = 0.6545 pounds) (Reporting by James Davey and Paul Sandle; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Mark Potter)