A stamp card that needs no app
Paper stamp cards get lost and copied; loyalty apps never get downloaded. A stamp card that lives on the customer's phone through a link, filled automatically from the till, keeps the simplicity and drops the problems.
The café's stamp card in Apple Wallet and Google Wallet
Coming soon
The stamp card already lives on a page the customer opens from the receipt. Now it can go into the phone's wallet, next to the bank cards, and it updates itself after every visit.
Coming soon: the Apple Wallet and Google Wallet buttons are not switched on yet. The stamp card itself works today on its card page, with no app.
Imagine a karak café in Deira. The morning regulars come every day on the way to work: one karak, sometimes two, a chapati on Fridays. The café runs a stamp card, "buy nine, the tenth is free", and it works, as long as the customer can find it. The card page is somewhere in the phone's browser tabs, or in a WhatsApp message from three weeks ago.
The one place on a phone that people open without thinking is the wallet: it is where the bank card, the boarding pass and the cinema ticket live. That is where the stamp card belongs.
From the card page to the wallet in one tap
The stamp card already works without an app (see a stamp card that needs no app). The customer scans the QR printed under the stamps line on the receipt ("Stamps: 4 of 9"), and the card opens on the phone: the shop's logo and name, the stamps as filled and empty circles, the reward, the rule, and the code the cashier scans.
Under the card, two buttons:
- Add to Apple Wallet on an iPhone: the pass opens in Wallet, one more tap to add it.
- Add to Google Wallet on Android: Google's save page opens, one tap to save.
The pass shows the stamps, the points balance when your loyalty points are on, the reward, the rule, the code as a QR, and a link back to the card page. It wears your shop's name, logo and colour, in your online shop's language.
It updates itself after every visit
The customer never refreshes anything. After each sale that earns a stamp, the pass updates itself in the background: 5 of 9, 6 of 9, then "reward ready". Giving the reward at the till updates the pass too. A return or a void takes the stamps back on the pass as it does on the card.
At the counter, the customer opens the wallet and shows the pass; the cashier scans the code, exactly as with the card page.
No app, no login, nothing personal in the link
There is nothing to download and no account to make. The card's link is a long secret code: nothing of the customer's phone number or name is in it. The stamps are kept at the shop, on the customer's card, so a lost phone or a deleted pass loses nothing; the cashier finds the customer and the card is still there.
You set nothing up for the wallet: the buttons appear on the card page once wallet passes are switched on for CreekPOS, for every shop with the stamp card on.
The desktop program gets the stamp card too
The buy-once desktop program gains the stamp card itself in the Gold package and up: the same rules (stamps per visit or per item, how many fill the card, the reward, an expiry), the stamps on the member button, Give the reward at the till, and the receipt printing "Stamps: 5 of 9" and "Reward ready: a free karak". The desktop has no public card page, so there is no link and no wallet pass there.
In CreekPOS Online, the stamp card and the wallet buttons come with the plans that have loyalty, from Retail up.
Tips for a good reward rule
- One sentence. "Buy nine karaks, the tenth is free." If the cashier needs two sentences, the rule is too complicated.
- Match the rule to the visit. A café counts each drink (item mode, only the categories that count); a salon or a car wash counts each visit above a minimum amount.
- A reward people want. The product they buy anyway works best. A discount on something they never buy fills no cards.
- A reachable target. Nine is the classic for a daily habit; for a weekly visit, six fills before people forget.
- An expiry, if any, that is generous. Stamps that drop off after a few months stop old cards piling up without punishing the regulars.
- Say it at the counter. "Add the card to your wallet and you will never lose it" is the whole pitch.
Good to know
- The reward is always given by the cashier at the till, once per full card, never twice; a cashier without the right needs a manager's approval.
- The card page still works for customers who prefer not to use the wallet.
See the stamp card in the wallet on the e-receipt page, the stamp card in the manual and the earlier post a stamp card that needs no app.
This article is general information as of its date, not legal or tax advice. Rules change; check the official source or ask your accountant before acting.
