Digital loyalty card: your own app or Apple and Google Wallet?

Paper stamp cards get lost, left at home, and tell you nothing about your customers. A digital card fixes that, but there are several ways to do it, at very different costs. Here are the options, how each one works and when your own app is worth it.

Three kinds of digital loyalty card

For a coffee shop, salon or neighbourhood store, a Wallet card covers almost everything a paper card does, without asking customers to install anything.

How a Wallet card works

1. The customer scans a QR code at the counter or opens a link from an email or your website.
2. They enter a name or phone number, if you ask for one, and tap "Add to Apple Wallet" or "Add to Google Wallet".
3. On each visit, staff scan the barcode on the card.
4. The server adds the stamp or points and sends the update, and the card on the customer's phone changes on its own.
5. When the card is full, the reward appears on it, and staff mark it as used when they scan it.

In Apple Wallet, loyalty cards are "store card" passes, designed for discounts, gift cards and loyalty programmes. Updates go through a web service: the phone registers the card with your server, and the server sends a notification when something changes.

What you need: a ready-made service or a card built for you

A ready-made service is the fastest. Loopy Loyalty, for example, costs $25 a month for one card design and one location, $69 for three and $95 for ten, with Apple Wallet and Google Wallet support. Customer data stays with the provider, and the design and rules work within the platform's limits.

A card built for you needs:

• an Apple Developer Program account, $99 a year, used to create the card's identifier and the certificate that signs it;
• a Google Wallet issuer account. New accounts start in demo mode, and to issue cards to anyone you request publishing access after Google reviews a test card and your business profile;
• a server that creates cards, receives scans and sends updates;
• a scanning page or screen for your staff.

It costs more up front, but the data stays with you, and the card can connect to your point of sale, your website or your booking system.

When your own app is worth it

Your own mobile app is worth it when the loyalty card is only part of what customers do: they order ahead, book a table or an appointment, and get personalised offers. For stamps alone, an app is usually too much: few customers install an app for a free coffee after ten.

App costs are covered in how much does an app cost and how much it costs to publish an app, and the web app versus mobile app choice in web app vs mobile app.

Choosing the rules

• Stamps or points. Stamps ("your tenth coffee is free") need no explanation. Points suit businesses where basket sizes vary a lot.
• One clear reward. A coffee, half-price haircut, 10% off the next purchase. The easier it is to explain, the more it gets used.
• No short expiry. Stamps that vanish after a month annoy customers more than they motivate them.
• Staff do the scanning. Customers can't stamp their own cards, and every scan is logged.

Customer data and marketing messages

A loyalty card can work with just a code and no name. If you ask for details (name, phone, email), collect only what you use and say in your privacy policy why you collect it and how long you keep it.

If you send marketing messages, US rules apply on top of that. Under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, marketing text messages sent with automated systems need the customer's prior express written consent. Under CAN-SPAM, marketing emails must identify you, include your postal address and offer a working way to opt out, honoured within ten business days. In the EU, marketing emails and texts generally need prior consent, with a narrow exception for existing customers and similar products.

We build loyalty cards as part of the mobile apps we make, and when a Wallet card is all you need, we'll tell you that in the first conversation.