Paper punch card, loyalty app or wallet pass: what each one asks of your customer
All three do the same job: get a customer to come back for the reward. What changes is how much work it puts on them and how much you learn about them.
How to create a digital loyalty card, step by step
Design the card
Name, reward, number of stamps and colors, like the builder above. When you create your account you upload your logo and choose whether customers earn a stamp per visit or per amount spent.
Put the QR code on your counter
rewa gives you a printable sign with your branding and a QR code. The customer scans it, types their email, enters the 6-digit code we send and adds the card to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet.
Add stamps at the register
Your staff scans the pass from any phone or tablet. If the customer left their phone at home, they look them up by phone number. The customer gets a lock-screen notification: “You earned a stamp. You have 4 of 10 stamps.”
Hand over the reward
When the card is full, the register shows it and you redeem the reward with one tap. The card starts over from zero.
How many stamps to ask for, and what reward to give
A card has to fill up before the customer forgets about it. A rule that works: a regular should reach the reward in four to eight weeks.
At a coffee shop where regulars come in two or three times a week, that's about 10 stamps. At a nail salon, where clients book every two to four weeks, 10 stamps takes six months or more, so 5 or 6 works better.
Price the reward by what it costs you to make. Say a latte sells for $4.50 and costs you about $1.20. Giving one away after nine paid visits costs $1.20 against $40.50 in sales, roughly 3%. Taking 10% off every order would cost you more than three times as much.
If you want to reward customers before the end, rewa lets you add up to three smaller rewards on the same card, like a free cookie at stamp 5.
Punch card, stamp card or loyalty card: same idea, different names
In the US most owners call it a punch card, after the paper cards you mark with a hole punch. In the UK and Australia it's usually a stamp card or a coffee card. Loyalty card is the umbrella term everywhere.
A stamp card counts visits: one box per visit. A points card counts what the customer spends and lets them pick a reward from a menu you set up. On rewa each shop runs one of the two, and both live in the customer's phone wallet.
Loyalty card examples by type of business
Four cards built around the typical numbers for each business. Change the values in the builder above to see yours.
Coffee shop
- One drink every ten visits, at cost. With a latte costing you about a quarter of its menu price, that's around 3% of what that customer spends with you.
- Put the QR code next to the register and give your team one line to say at checkout: “Want a stamp? Just scan here.” For the first few weeks, your daily regulars do most of the signing up.
- Staff forgetting to offer it during the morning rush. If the 8 a.m. line goes by without stamps, regulars stop asking for them.
Bakery
- Pastries have good margins and cheap ingredients, so a free one every eight visits is one of the cheapest rewards you can offer.
- Put the QR code on the display case at eye level, with a small sign saying the card lives in their phone.
- Setting the minimum purchase too high. If only big orders earn a stamp, the regular who buys one croissant a day never gets there.
Nail salon
- One service every six visits. It costs you chair time, so it's worth booking free services on your slower days.
- Offer it when a client pays for their first appointment and take their email right there. The QR code goes on the front desk or by the drying station.
- A 10-stamp card. With a visit every three weeks, the reward is seven months away and nobody remembers the card.
Barbershop
- One cut in six. If a client comes in every three weeks, that's a free cut every four months, which costs far less than losing them to the shop down the street.
- Stamp the card when they pay and show them the pass on their phone. Seeing “1 of 6” on the lock screen is what gets them to check it again.
- Changing the reward halfway through. If someone has four stamps toward a haircut, the haircut has to be there at six.
How much it costs
Building and previewing your card on this page is free and doesn't need an account.
To use it with customers, rewa has two plans, both with unlimited customers. Basic is $30 a month for one location. Pro is $60 a month for up to three locations and adds reminders and promotions sent to your customers' lock screens. Every new account starts with 14 days of Pro. Billed in US dollars, with no contract.
Frequently asked questions
Do my customers need to download an app?
No. They scan the QR code at your counter, type their email, enter a 6-digit code and add the card to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet. They can also open it as a web page from the same link.
What if a customer forgets their phone?
Your staff looks them up by phone number and adds the stamp anyway.
Can I use my own logo and colors?
Yes. You pick the card color and the stamp color, upload your logo, and can hide the shop name if the logo already says it. The card, its web page and both wallet passes use the same design.
Do stamps expire?
Only if you want them to. You can set an expiry in days or months, or leave stamps with no expiry. Customers see on their card how many stamps expired and when.
Does it work with more than one location?
Yes. The Pro plan covers up to three locations with the same card, and your dashboard shows the activity at each one. For more than three locations there's an Enterprise plan.
What's the difference between a punch card and a loyalty card?
A punch card is one kind of loyalty card: it counts visits. A loyalty card can also count points based on what a customer spends. rewa does both, one per shop.