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

Most owners settle this by looking at what the shop next door does. That is the worst method: the shop next door does not have your average bill, nor your visit frequency. A loyalty scheme is neither good nor bad in the abstract, it either fits the way your till fills up or it does not.

Ask yourself one question: do two customers who walk through your door leave roughly the same amount? If they do, stamps are enough, because counting visits comes to the same thing as counting takings. If they do not, if one spends £5 and the next one £80, stamps become unfair, and your best customers can feel it.

A second question sharpens the answer: how often does a regular come back? Every week, and the stamps fill up fast, so the card stays alive. Five or six times a year, and a ten stamp card takes more than a year to fill, and nobody waits a year for a free coffee. Amounts here are in pounds; in Ireland read euros throughout, the arithmetic is identical.

Take a bakery or a coffee shop. The flat white at £3.20 in the morning and the £14 order on Saturday even out over a month. Everyone looks much the same around that average, so one visit really is worth one visit, and the stamp does exactly the job.

The strength of the stamp is that it can be counted. A customer sees 7 out of 10 on their card in Apple Wallet and understands in a second that three coffees are left. That small mental sum is precisely what makes them cross the road rather than go to the place opposite. A balance of 143 points out of 200 does not produce the same reflex: it takes thought, and nobody thinks in front of a shop window.

The trades where stamps nearly always win: bakery, coffee shop, tea room, sandwich shop, takeaway, pizzeria, ice cream shop, dry cleaner, dog groomer. What they have in common: a narrow range of bills, and a customer who comes back often.

Now walk into a hair salon. Two problems appear at once with stamps. First, a £25 cut and a £90 colour earn the same stamp: the client who spends the most is funding the reward of the one who spends the least, and she works that out. Second, if your regulars come in five or six times a year, a ten stamp card needs roughly eighteen months. You may as well offer nothing at all.

Points settle both at a stroke. The client who leaves £90 moves three times faster than the one who leaves £30, which is simply fair. And you set the target on an amount spent, not on a number of visits that will never happen within the year.

The trades where points win: hair salon, barber, beauty salon, wine shop, cheesemonger, butcher, greengrocer, deli, florist, pet shop. What they have in common: a basket that swings from one to ten, or visits too far apart for a card with boxes.

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

In stamps, that gives orders of magnitude that are easy to remember. An almost daily customer (bakery, coffee shop): 10 stamps, about two weeks. A weekly customer (takeaway, sandwich shop): 8 stamps, about two months. A fortnightly customer (restaurant, pizzeria): 4 stamps, two months again. A monthly customer (dry cleaner, dog groomer): 3 stamps. Digikart accepts from 2 to 50 stamps, but beyond 12 what you mostly manufacture is disappointment.

In points, set the rate at 1 point per pound spent (1 point per euro in Ireland): the balance then reads directly as money spent, which takes one sentence to explain at the counter and checks itself. The threshold becomes an amount. In a hair salon, 150 points is three or four visits at a typical bill, so around six months for a client who comes in five or six times a year: that is the acceptable ceiling, and that is why you do not go higher. In a wine shop, 200 points. At a butcher or a greengrocer, 120 points. Then choose a reward that costs you a small fraction of that amount: after £150 spent, a free blow dry or a treatment, not a full colour.

The difference is not only on paper, it is also in your hands during the rush. With stamps, you scan the customer's QR code and that is that: 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 straight after the scan. You type it in, the card credits the matching number of points. A few seconds more, on every visit. In front of a bakery queue, those seconds are a real cost. Behind a salon till, where you are already keying in the price of the service, they cost nothing at all.

One exception changes the picture: with a connected till, included in the Pro plan (only the setup is billed, 149 € incl. VAT, roughly £130, once and once only, and Digikart invoices in euros), the amount comes across on its own and there is nothing left to type. In that case the speed argument disappears, and you choose purely on the shape of your bills.

Restaurant. It depends on the service. A fixed price lunch, with local regulars coming back three times a week: stamps, without hesitation. An evening menu where the bill runs from £22 on your own to £140 for four with wine: points, otherwise the table of four pays for everyone.

Wine shop and deli. Points, almost always. Between the £9 bottle picked up on the way home and the £180 case at Christmas, no stamp can be honest. It is also the trade where points turn into a concrete reward most easily, because you have a range of products at every price.

Beauty salon and nail bar. Look at your treatment list. If you live off one dominant treatment at a more or less fixed price, a set of gel nails for instance, stamps are enough and are easier to read. If your list runs from a £15 wax to a £90 full treatment, move to points.

Butcher, cheesemonger, greengrocer. Points. In the same week, the same customer comes in for £4 of cheese and for £60 of meat for the weekend. Stamps there reward the top up rather than the real takings.

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

Your customers have nothing to do. The cards already installed in Apple Wallet and Google Wallet update by themselves: no reinstalling, no new QR code 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 it stands, as a plain number. A customer on 7 stamps ends up on 7 points. If you move from a target of 10 stamps to a target of 200 points, someone who was three stamps from their reward starts again from almost nothing. So change at the right moment, when few regulars are close to the goal, and be generous at the counter for two or three weeks with those who notice.

The best method is still the simplest: run one system for a month. Your customer list shows where each of them stands, how many visits they have made and how many rewards they have claimed. If nobody ever reaches the reward, the first thing to change is not the system, it is the threshold.

Three lines to decide. Consistent bills and frequent customers: stamps. A basket that swings widely, or visits spread out across the year: points. Still hesitating: take stamps, they are explained in one sentence, read at a glance and do not slow the counter down. You will put it right in two minutes if your till tells you otherwise.

Whatever your answer, do not stay stuck on that screen: an imperfect scheme that is running beats a perfect one that does not exist. The full walkthrough is in the guide create your loyalty card, how it all works on the digital loyalty card page, and any remaining questions in the FAQ.

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