“With a continuing expansion |of its parent company Central Group in the near future, our unit has set an ambitious goal to reach almost half of the Thai population by inviting them to be a part of our loyalty programme,” Rawee Puapornpong, senior vice president for customer relationship management of Central Group (CPN), said yesterday.

After merging its database with a million Thai Watsadu members, the 1 Card will continue to expand its customer base.

All members can earn and redeem points by spending via various channels in CPN’s nine business groups.

These are the department-store group (Central, Central Embassy, Zen, Robinson and Supersports), the consumer-products group (Tops and Family Mart), construction materials, the stationery, books and online group (B2S, OfficeMate and Central Online), the shopping-mall and real-estate group under Central Pattana, Central Marketing Group, Centara Group (hotels and resorts), Central Restaurants Group, and Central Group Vietnam.

CPN has more than 5,000 domestic and international locations including overseas department stores – La Rinascente in Italy with 11 branches, ILLUM in Denmark, and three recently acquire department stores in Germany, KaDeWe, Oberpollinger and Alsterhaus.

To accommodate this expanding customer base, the company is planning to invest Bt100 million in supporting facilities and data analytic technology this year on top of the Bt200-million investment in the five-year plan that began last year.