The right loyalty program for a café or coffee shop

The best field evidence on stamp cards comes from a café. How soon should customers earn their first reward? covers what it found about how near the reward should be. Here it shows which customers a card moves.

The café had several outlets on an American university campus. Its card read "Buy 10 American Coffees and get one American Coffee or one baked good FREE". The researchers studied 949 finished cards. The first gap between purchases on a card was 3.3 days, and the average across the card was 2.7. By the authors' sum, that is nine purchases a month at the starting pace and eleven with the speed-up: two more coffees bought, in their words, "in order to earn one free coffee".

So the people who filled these cards started out buying about twice a week. Not all of them changed: by the authors' breakdown, 58% of members clearly sped up and about one in eight hardly did. It is also one café on one campus, published in 2006. It shows where the gain is. It does not predict your counter.

The authors checked whether members were simply forming a habit, "a card-usage routine or an addiction to coffee". Two findings say not. After the free coffee, a member's next card started at about the pace the first had. And 42 customers were paid a flat fee to carry a card that was stamped like the others but could be exchanged for nothing. Their gaps between purchases grew longer as the card filled.

So the next card should begin as soon as the last is spent. In native.cards it does. The card program form says: "Claiming it uses one full card; any extra stamps carry over to the next."

Purchases followed the calendar too. In the researchers' model, a purchase was less likely on a Friday, less likely again at the weekend and less likely during the mid-term break. Your cards will stall the same way when the routine does: over school holidays, in the fasting month or while a regular is on leave. Stamps do not expire in native.cards, so a card left alone for a fortnight is where the member left it.

Under Customers, the stage At risk means "Last visit was 31 to 60 days ago." A morning regular gone that long has probably found another counter. Overdue, also under Customers, is quicker: it lists "Regulars away at least twice as long as they usually are", which for someone who comes every third day is about a week. You can see who they are. You cannot send a notification to them alone.

A card of ten gives away one cup in every eleven a member is served, about 9%. That cup costs you somewhere between its ingredients and its menu price. Which end depends on the customer.

An example with made-up prices. A latte sells for RM11 and costs RM3 in beans, milk, cup and lid. Rent and wages are paid whether or not one more is poured.

A customer who comes in every working morning has 22 lattes a month, card or no card. They have no mornings left to add, so on a card of ten each free cup takes the place of one they would have bought: they pay for 20 and have 2 free. You take RM220 where you took RM242: RM22 a month less, for visits that have not changed.

A customer who bought nine lattes a month and now buys eleven, as the campus café's members did, pays for two more and has one free on top of them. The two extra cups bring RM16 after ingredients, the free one costs RM3 to make, and you are about RM13 a month ahead.

On these numbers it takes nearly two of the second customer to pay for one of the first.

A study backs the daily customer's case. At a convenience store franchise, customers who were heavy buyers when a program began "were most likely to claim their qualified rewards, but the program did not prompt them to change their purchase behavior", while lighter buyers "gradually purchased more". That was a convenience chain, not a café, and we read only the paper's abstract.

What the RM22 may buy is a regular who stays. The one study that measured that, at a salon chain, is in Is a loyalty program worth it for your business?.

A shorter card suits the twice-a-week customer and costs more on the daily one: a card of eight gives away one cup in nine. The reward's name matters too. "A free drink" lets every member choose your dearest. "A free regular latte" does not. How to choose rewards customers want and you can afford explains why the reward should still be coffee.

On 21 September 2026 the New Straits Times set three chain lattes side by side: RM9.90 at ZUS Coffee, on its app; RM13 at Luckin Coffee when it launched here; "around RM15 to RM15.90" at Starbucks. The cheapest is more than a third below the dearest. A free cup in eleven gives back 9%. A stamp card will not win the customer who chooses on price.

One café cannot copy how the chains sign people up either. ZUS's App Store listing offers "Download now to enjoy Buy 1 Free 1 on your first purchase!" and counts "1,000+ outlets across Southeast Asia". Tealive, the tea chain, gives a free drink after ten, but the offer is "Applicable for purchases using Tealive credit only", money the customer has paid in beforehand. native.cards has no joining bonus and no app, and it holds no stored value. The nearest thing to a welcome is to make sure nobody leaves with an empty card: record the purchase a customer is making as they join.

What is worth copying is the number. Tealive's FAQ page, read on 10 October 2026, carries it as "Get 1 FREE drink when you purchase 10 drinks at Tealive stores". An older ZUS Coffee page still online promises "FREE complimentary drinks from ZUS Coffee for every 10 cups purchased". That page is undated and may not be what ZUS offers now, so treat it as history. Your customers already know a card of ten from the chains.

A rubber stamp takes a second. A Wallet Card takes longer, so remove every step the sale does not need.

When you create the card program, choose Stamp as what the card counts and leave Points and Qualifying spend unticked. The serving screen then reads This visit and asks for no amount. Staff open the Scanner on a phone or tablet, scan the customer's card, enter their own Staff PIN and press Record purchase. Four seconds later the screen is ready for the next customer.

Typing is the slow route. When a customer reads out a member ID or phone number, staff choose ID or phone, find the name and read it back before pressing Yes, continue. A notice by the queue, "Members: have your card open", saves most of that.

Settle three things before the first rush.

• Where people join. Put the join sign beside the payment QR, where the phone is already out. The customer finishes joining while the drink is made, and whoever hands it over records the day's purchase. So the scanner has to be within that person's reach. How to get customers to join at the counter has the words to say.
• Several drinks on one bill. The campus café printed "One stamp per visit" on its card. native.cards works the same way: it gives a stamp for each purchase recorded, not for each cup. Six lattes on one bill earn one stamp. Give staff a sentence to explain it.
• A lost connection. The Counter does not work offline. If an answer fails to come back, the screen shows Result not yet confirmed. Press Check result or Send again: "it cannot be counted twice".

Stamps to fill a card takes 2 to 20 and starts at 10. A card of ten has ten circles, the last drawn as the reward, so "buy ten, get one free" is a card of ten at one stamp a purchase. Ten fits a customer who comes three times a week. Eight fits one who comes twice. The size cannot be changed after the program is live.

Add the reward under Rewards And Benefits, where Use stamp reward setup fills in the rule: "It costs one full card, is paid when claimed and can be earned again. You only need to name it."

A full card is not yet a reward. It reads "Card complete. Claim your reward at the counter". The drink becomes the member's when it is claimed, by the member on your Business page or by staff.

That decides who a reminder reaches. Reward reminder goes to Members with a reward waiting, who "Have a reward they haven’t used yet". A member with a full, unclaimed card is not one of them.

So claim it for them. When the stamp that fills a card is recorded, the screen offers Enough for and the reward's name. Press it before the screen moves on, tell the customer, enter the PIN again and press Claim for later. They leave holding a free drink, their next card has begun, and if they go quiet the reminder can reach them. Five notifications worth sending to your members covers its wording and how often to repeat it.