Dorset-based Dike & Son has launched a lucky dip scratchcard campaign to drive sales and increase footfall and loyalty.

Every time a customer spends £25 or over, they receive a scratchcard, offering them the chance to win one of 4,000 products.

The scratchcards, which carry Dike & Son branding, launched two weeks ago following a £1,700 printing investment and is set to run for a further fortnight.

“We’ve printed 30,000 tickets and there’s a hit rate of one in eight,” said company director Adam Vincent, who came up with the idea alongside managing director Andy Dike.

“We’ve got 100s of different prizes, you can win anything from a pack of crumpets and packets of cheese, up to bottles of alcohol and an X-box.”

The bulk of prizes were donated by suppliers keen for new customers to try their products. “It’s a really good opportunity for sampling,” said Adam. “I have 300 frozen curries to give away and if people try it and like it, hopefully they’ll be back for more.”

Adam explained that people with winning scratchcards have to re-enter the store, walk to the correct department and locate the product themselves, thus encouraging them to go to a section of the store they may not normally visit and possibly pick up other products while they’re there.

“It’s something really different. It’s creating a bit of interest, and driving people into the store; it’s increasing loyalty by driving people back to the store; and it’s getting people to try things they haven’t tried before,” said Adam. “It’s a good way of driving sales.”

As well as achieving good feeling in-store, the firm has been using the campaign to create a buzz on social media by regularly posting photos of scratchcard winners on the store’s Facebook page.

“I’m really hoping we get good interest and then we’ll go further with it next year and hopefully more suppliers will be interested,” said Adam. “The feedback’s been really good so far, people really love it.”