Points, stamps or visits: which should you use?

A stamp or a visit is earned by buying, whatever the bill. The customer who pays for one kopi ais and the customer who pays for the whole office's order each move one step. Where nearly everyone buys one item at about one price, that is fair. Anyone can say the rule ("the sixth one is free"), and a member sees how far along they are.

Points follow the bill. At one point for every RM1, a RM70 purchase earns ten times what a RM7 one does. Where baskets run from a single drink to a month's shopping, that is the fairer measure. Points also suit a business people visit two or three times a year, such as a clothes shop or a bookshop. One large purchase can carry a member a long way, where a stamp card would take years to fill.

Counting purchases ignores what people spend. Points put a sum between the customer and the reward: a balance of 140 means nothing until the member knows what a point buys. Staff also have to enter the amount of every purchase.

Most businesses are less clear-cut. A quick test: put your smallest everyday bill beside your largest. If they are a few ringgit apart, count purchases. If one is ten times the other, count ringgit. A café whose bills run from, say, RM9 to RM15 is the first kind. The same café with a kitchen, where a table of four might spend RM150, is closer to the second.

A stamp is for a purchase, not a cup. In native.cards a stamp is given for each purchase staff record, so four drinks on one bill earn what one drink earns. The campus café studied in How soon should customers earn their first reward? ran the same rule ("only one stamp per visit was permitted"). A coffee bar that lives on office orders should weigh Points.

Visits is only a count. It is a figure on the card and in your records. Nothing happens when it reaches a number, and a reward cannot cost Visits: the reward form's Paid in does not list them. So "a free class after every ten" is built as a Stamp card.

The study of that campus café is the strongest field evidence we have read on loyalty cards, but it cannot say which unit to use: every card in it was a stamp card. Three other findings come closer.

Simple and immediate did best in grocery. A study of 358 grocery banners (the names supermarkets trade under) in 27 European countries found "a positive effect of the more basic LP variant that offers direct and immediate rewards". LP means loyalty program. That effect "disappears when retailers operate a more complex progressive-reward system". The study is about supermarket chains, and we read only its abstract. The abstract does not compare stamps with points or say what counts as "progressive", so it is not a verdict on either. What it supports is narrower: keep the program plain and the reward quick.

One study points the other way. Among 322 listed companies that introduced a program between 2000 and 2015, it reports that a program "with tiers or earning mechanisms can provide firms with significant increases in sales and gross profits". Neither sample is a shop with one counter.

A level that can be taken away does harm. Tealive's FAQ says of its three levels: "If you don't earn enough Tpoints in 3 months, your tier will go down by one level". In a 2009 scenario experiment, "loyalty intentions are indeed lower for demoted customers than for those who have never been awarded a preferred status". In plain words, customers who lost a level intended to be less loyal than customers who never had one. native.cards has no tiers, levels or multipliers, so you get neither the option nor the risk.

Points can make an offer look better than it is. In experiments published in 2003, people chose differently when a token such as points stood between their effort and the reward. One reason given: the token "presents an illusion of advantage to an otherwise not so advantageous option". These were experiments on choice, and we read only the abstract, so how far they apply at a shop counter is a judgement. The remedy costs nothing: say what a point is worth, as the next section sets out.

Three Malaysian programs show why. The first three columns come from each operator's published terms, read on 10 October 2026. The last is arithmetic.

Two of these give one point for every RM1, yet one returns twice what the other does. GSC gives five times as many points as Sunway and, on that voucher, about three times the value. An earn rate on a sign tells a customer nothing by itself.

If you choose Points, put the ringgit beside them wherever the rule appears. Tealive's FAQ does it in a line: "Each point is worth RM0.01."

You choose when you create the card program, in two places.

First, on the Name step, under What it is for, pick Loyalty and rewards. The form starts with Membership selected. That kind counts only Membership status and has no Earning step, so if you leave it there you are never asked the question.

Second, Earning asks "What do customers build up?" and lists five things the card can count: Points, Stamp, Visits, Qualifying spend and Membership status. You can tick more than one, but each extra unit is another rule for your team to explain. The next step, Rules, sets the numbers.

Points. Points per unit of spend takes anything from 0.01 to 1,000 points for every RM1 and starts at 1. The form adds: "Part points are rounded down." That happens on every purchase. At one point for every RM1, a RM9.90 bill earns 9 points. At one point for every RM10, it earns none. So keep the rate at one point for every RM1 or higher, and set how generous you are through what each reward costs.

Stamps. Stamps to fill a card takes 2 to 20 and starts at 10. Stamps for one purchase is normally one. The member's Wallet Card draws one circle for each stamp and marks the last as the reward. A card of ten takes ten stamps: the tenth fills that circle, and the member can then claim the reward.

Visits and spend. Visits for one purchase is normally one as well. Qualifying spend keeps "a running total of what they have spent with you" and nothing more: no reward in native.cards is unlocked by reaching a spend figure.

At the counter. Where a program earns Points, staff see a Purchase amount field and type the bill. Where it counts only Stamps or Visits, the screen reads This visit: staff find the member, enter their Staff PIN and press Record purchase. In a morning queue that is one step fewer and one figure fewer to get wrong.

Referrals need Points. When a member invites a friend, you give the member a share of the Points the friend collects: see How to get your regulars to bring a friend. On a program that collects no Points, the Referrals page reads "Referrals need Points" and adds "Stamps and visits stay personal." If you expect regulars to bring people in, that can settle a close call.

"A stamp reward always costs one full card." That is the reward form's own line. It gives a Stamp card one distance to the reward: the size you chose. You can offer a choice at that distance, a drink or a pastry. You cannot offer a small reward at four stamps and a bigger one at ten. With Points each reward has its own cost under It costs, so one can be near and another further off.

The rule is fixed once the program is live. From then on the program's Rules view reads: "Earning rules on a live program can't be changed here." Points leave some room: you can still add a reward at a different cost, and remove an old one from offer. A Stamp card leaves none, because its size is part of the rule. Only one program can be live at a time, and there is no import or starting balance. So a change of unit means a new program in which every balance starts at zero.