What a stamp card is actually for
A loyalty card is not a discount. It is a reason to come back on a Tuesday, and the difference between those two ideas is most of your margin.
Most stamp cards are run as a discount with extra steps. Buy nine coffees, get the tenth free, and the owner quietly books a ten percent cut on every regular they already had.
That is a real cost, and it buys nothing on its own. The regular was coming anyway. What the card is for is the customer who would have come four times this month and comes six instead.
The only number that matters
Work it from the margin, not the discount.
If a visit is worth £4 in gross profit and the tenth coffee costs you £1.20 in goods, the card pays for itself the moment it adds a single extra visit per nine. One extra visit buys £4; the reward costs £1.20.
| Visits without a card | Visits with a card | Reward cost | Net |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | 9 | £1.20 | −£1.20 |
| 9 | 10 | £1.20 | +£2.80 |
| 9 | 12 | £1.20 | +£10.80 |
The first row is the one to avoid, and it is what happens when a card is only ever handed to people already holding one.
Why paper loses
A paper card has no idea who is holding it, so it cannot do the one thing that changes the second row into the third: say something on a quiet Tuesday.
A wallet card can. It sits on a phone that the customer already unlocks eighty times a day, and it can put a line on the lock screen when the shop is empty rather than when it is full.
The card is not the loyalty program. The card is the delivery address.
What to do with it
Three things, in order:
- Give it to new customers, not regulars. The regular is not the growth.
- Set the reward where the maths works, which is usually further out than feels comfortable.
- Use the notification sparingly. One well-timed message beats four ignored ones, and the fourth is what gets the card deleted.
None of that needs a POS integration or a tablet on the counter. It needs a card people actually keep, and a reason to send them something worth reading.