Coffee with your car parts? Canadian Tire and Tim Hortons merge loyalty programs

Your Tim Hortons prescribe mightiness shortly amount with a face of Canadian Tire money.

Canadian Tire announced Monday that it's partnering with the coffee giant to dish out perks to customers of both brands.

Under the partnership launching sometime next year, customers who link their Triangle and Tims Rewards accounts will earn Canadian Tire money on eligible purchases at the restaurant chain. Linking both accounts will also give customers access to exclusive offers.

Neither brand would specify what kind of offers shoppers will see. They said those details and information about what constitutes an eligible purchase and how much Canadian Tire money will be earned per dollar spent will be available closer to launch.

Canadian Tire CEO Greg Hicks and Tim Hortons chief marketing officer Hope Bagozzi each said in a statement that the partnership will deliver even more value to their customers.

The partnership continues the growth of the Triangle Rewards program beyond the Canadian Tire family of brands — SportChek, Party City, Mark's, Pro Hockey Life and Atmosphere.

The loyalty program already has incentives for customers who patronize Petro-Canada gas stations and Royal Bank of Canada. A partnership with WestJet is set to launch next year.

Canadian Tire's Triangle Rewards program has nearly 12 million members and is a cornerstone of its True North initiative, which is meant to deliver growth and operational efficiency through restructuring and an investment of more than $2 billion over four years.

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Tim Hortons has also been growing its rewards program through its Roll Up to Win contest and by offering app users the ability to skip the line when ordering ahead.

Lauren Burrows, a senior manager of retail strategy at consulting firm Accenture, said the Tim Hortons and Canadian Tire partnership is "so powerful" because it gives both brands more ways to engage their customers across "high-frequency" spending categories — coffee, gas, household products and auto goods.

"This is a great example of loyalty programs evolving from transactional to truly strategic," she said in a LinkedIn post.

However, Liza Amlani, principal and co-founder of the Retail Strategy Group, pointed out "this is less about customer delight and more about two legacy brands scrambling for incremental share in an oversaturated loyalty market."

"Canadians are already juggling too many programs, and unless the value proposition is simple, transparent and genuinely rewarding, this risks becoming just another corporate tie-up that benefits the brands more than the shoppers," she said in an email.

The Canadian Tire and Tim Hortons partnership comes as companies are increasingly launching, retooling and growing their loyalty programs.

In the last few years, the Scene loyalty program run by Cineplex and Scotiabank got an overhaul, when grocery chain owner Empire Co. Ltd. Joined. Major changes are also on the way to Air Canada's Aeroplan program.

While such programs deliver discounts for customers, the benefits are even bigger for businesses. Companies get access to a vast trove of information about shopping habits and consumer demographics every time someone enrolls in or uses their program. Retailers then use the data to tailor their merchandise and stores to their customer base's wants and needs, thus maximizing profits.

Partnerships between loyalty programs give businesses even more data and allows them to piece together a more detailed picture of who their customers are and what will make them buy more.

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