Enterprise launches reverse auction to drive footfall

Enterprise Inns is helping its retailers drive trade with a reverse auction across its estate.

The in-pub initiative allows customers to text a bid for prizes with the lowest unique bid scooping the prize.

Every time a customer wins, the licensee gets a prize too.

The four week-text auction will see five spot prizes of £100 given away at 5pm every Thursday between 2 June and 29 June to customers.

Licensees stand to receive £250 in cash if the prize is won at their pub and the top five retailers with the most customer bids at the end of the competition will win £1,000 each.

The star prize, a brand new Mini One, will be won by the customer who has texted the lowest unique bid by 5pm on the last day.

"Reverse auctions are very popular and are used widely in the media,"​ said head of retail & services Russell Wood.

"Win a Mini is a simple, but quirky idea to drive footfall into our pubs - while at the same time giving our retailers an opportunity to buy into the experiment at no cost and give it a big push.​

"If this approach is successful, we will certainly look at repeating it.

"The initiative will also provide a database of regulars and customers to send out marketing messages to in the future.

"We hope that ideas such as this will drive trade and that they present a great opportunity in many pubs to generate new customers and turn them into regulars."

Customers can also play online at www.howlo.co.uk/pubgaming​.

For more details licensees can contact their Enterprise Inns regional manager.