The Mail on Sunday says that Sainsbury's and Barclaycard are each reassessing their involvement with Nectar, which sees users given loyalty points at a vast number of stores across the UK.
Sainsbury's revealed last week that it planned to slash marketing costs by 拢40m over the next four years. It is reported to be spending 拢20m a year on marketing the Nectar scheme.
Barclaycard is reported to already have cut its marketing budget for the scheme and is not offering it to new users. The paper said that some of the partners are disappointed that the Nectar card has not been significantly driving sales.
However, Loyalty Management UK, the company behind Nectar, is intent on expanding the scheme and is currently looking at increasing the number of partners from 16 to 25. New categories being considered are DIY, mortgages, chemists and books.
The scheme launched in 2002, and ran into trouble after the number of people signing up caused the Nectar website to crash.
Brian Sinclair, director of business development at Nectar, said: "It's the best possible investment. We are confident that our sponsors feel that."
Earlier this year, it posted a loss of 拢8.99m for the year, down from 拢32m the previous year. Other partners include Whitbread restaurants, Ford and Debenhams.
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