Stamps or points: which system to choose for your loyalty card

Most shop owners decide by looking at what the shop next door does. It is the worst method: next door does not have your average spend, or your visit frequency. A loyalty system is neither good nor bad in absolute terms: it either suits the way your till fills up or it does not.

Ask yourself just one question: do two customers who walk through your door spend roughly the same amount? If so, stamps are enough, because counting visits amounts to counting revenue. If not, if one spends €6 and the next €80, stamps become unfair, and your best customers feel it.

A second question refines the answer: how often does a regular come back? Every week, the stamps fill up quickly and the card stays alive. Five or six times a year, a 10-stamp card takes more than a year to fill, and nobody holds on for a year for a free coffee.

Take a bakery. According to the FIDUCIAL 2026 Observatory of bakery and patisserie, which covers the 2025 results of 400 outlets, a bakery serves an average of 295 customers a day with an average spend of €6.40. Around that average, everyone looks alike: the morning croissant at €1.20 and the Sunday order at €14 end up balancing out over a month. In that case, one visit really is worth another, and stamps do exactly the job.

The strength of stamps is that they can be counted. A customer sees 7 out of 10 on their card in Apple Wallet and understands in a second that three more coffees will get them there. That little mental arithmetic is precisely what makes them cross the street to you rather than go to the shop opposite. A balance of 143 points out of 200 does not trigger the same reflex: you have to think, and nobody thinks in front of a shop window.

Businesses where stamps almost always win: bakery, café, tea room, sandwich shop, food truck, pizzeria, ice cream parlour, dry cleaner, dog groomer. What they have in common: a narrow spend range, and a customer who comes back often.

Go to another street and walk into a hair salon. The FIDUCIAL 2026 Observatory of hairdressing records an average spend of €42.7 and 6.6 visits per year per customer. Two problems arise straight away with stamps. First, a €25 cut and a €90 colour earn the same stamp: the client who spends the most funds the reward of the one who spends the least, and she notices. Second, at 6.6 visits a year, a 10-stamp card takes about a year and a half. You might as well offer nothing.

Points solve both at once. The client who spends €90 moves forward three times faster than the one who spends €30, which is simply fair. And you set the goal as an amount spent, not as a number of visits that will never happen within the year.

Businesses where points win: hairdresser, barber, beauty salon, wine merchant, cheesemonger, butcher, greengrocer, delicatessen, florist, pet shop. What they have in common: a basket that varies tenfold, or visits too far apart for a card with boxes.

The most common mistake is not choosing the wrong system, it is setting the bar too high. A simple rule: for a customer who comes every week or more, aim for no more than the number of visits they make in two months; for a less frequent customer, three or four visits, no more. Beyond that, the customer stops believing in it, and a card nobody believes in any more brings nobody back.

With stamps, this gives orders of magnitude that are easy to remember. An almost daily customer (bakery, café): 10 stamps, i.e. two weeks. A weekly customer (food truck, sandwich shop): 8 stamps, i.e. two months. A fortnightly customer (restaurant, pizzeria): 4 stamps, i.e. two months as well. A monthly customer (dry cleaner, pet grooming): 3 stamps. Digikart accepts from 2 to 50 stamps, but beyond 12 you are mostly manufacturing disappointment.

With points, set the rate at 1 point per euro spent: the balance then reads directly as euros spent, which can be explained in one sentence at the counter and checks itself. The threshold becomes a sum. At a hairdresser, 150 points correspond to three or four visits at the average spend recorded by FIDUCIAL, i.e. about six months at a rate of 6.6 visits a year: that is the acceptable ceiling, and it is the reason you do not go any higher. At a wine merchant, 200 points. At a butcher or greengrocer, 120 points. Then choose a reward that costs you a small fraction of that sum: after €150 spent, a free shampoo or blow-dry, not a full colour.

The difference is not only played out on paper, it is also played out in your hands during the rush. With stamps, you scan the customer's QR and you are done: two seconds, one hand, nothing to type. That is why stamps survive a Saturday morning with twelve people in the queue.

With points, the scanner asks you for the amount right after the scan. You type it in, and the card credits the matching number of points. A few extra seconds, on every visit. In front of a bakery queue, those seconds are a real cost. Behind a hair salon till, where you already type in the price of the service, they cost nothing at all.

One exception changes everything: with a connected till, included in the Pro plan (installation is billed €149, once only), the ticket amount comes through on its own and there is nothing left to type. In that case, the speed argument disappears, and you choose solely on the nature of your ticket.

Restaurant. It all depends on the service. A fixed-price lunch menu, with neighbourhood regulars who come back three times a week: stamps, without hesitation. An evening menu where the bill ranges from €22 for one to €140 for four with wine: points, otherwise the table of four pays for everyone.

Wine merchant and delicatessen. Points, almost always. Between the €9 emergency bottle and the €180 Christmas case, no stamp can be fair. It is also the trade where points turn best into a concrete reward, because you have a range of products at every price.

Beauty salon and nail bar. Look at your list of services. If you live off one dominant service at a roughly fixed price, nail extensions for example, stamps are enough and easier to read. If your list runs from €15 waxing to a €90 full treatment, switch to points.

Butcher, cheese shop, greengrocer. Points. Over a week, the same customer comes in for €4 of cheese and for €60 of weekend meat. Stamps there reward the quick top-up shop rather than the real turnover.

Good news: this choice is not set in stone. The loyalty mode is a setting of your card, in your dashboard. You switch from stamps to points (or the other way round), you save, and that is it. No extra charge, and it is possible on the free plan as well as on the paid plans.

Your customers have nothing to do. Cards already installed in Apple Wallet and Google Wallet update themselves: no reinstalling, no new QR to scan, no message to send. On their next visit, the card already shows the new system.

One point deserves your attention: each customer's balance is carried over as is, as a number. A customer on 7 stamps ends up on 7 points. If you go from a goal of 10 stamps to a goal of 200 points, the one who was three stamps away from their reward starts again practically from zero. So change at the right time, when few regulars are close to the goal, and be generous at the counter for two or three weeks with those who notice.

The right method remains the simplest: test one system for a month. Your customer list shows where each person stands, how many visits they have made and how many rewards they have claimed. If nobody ever reaches the reward, it is not the system you should change first, it is the threshold.

Three lines to decide. Consistent ticket and frequent customers: stamps. A basket that varies a lot, or visits spread out over the year: points. Still hesitating: take stamps, they can be explained in one sentence, read at a glance and do not slow the counter down. You will correct it in two minutes if your till tells you otherwise.

Whatever your answer, do not stay stuck on this screen: an imperfect programme that runs is better than a perfect programme that does not exist. The full step-by-step is in the guide create your loyalty card, how it works overall on the digital loyalty card page, and the remaining questions in the FAQ.

Both systems are available from the free plan, with an unlimited number of customers and no bank card needed. Enough to test your threshold in real conditions, on your real customers, before setting anything in stone.