Definition
Stamp
A stamp is a single credit on a loyalty card. Staff add one when a customer makes a qualifying purchase, and collecting the required number — often ten — earns the reward.
Per visit or per item
This is a decision worth making deliberately rather than leaving to each member of staff. Per visit is simpler and cheaper, and it is what most cafés mean. Per item is more generous and matters where one customer routinely buys for several people — a family buying four ice creams is four sales, and stamping once because it was one transaction feels mean to the person paying.
Why every stamp should be attributed
A stamp that records who added it, where and when turns an unanswerable question into a visible pattern. It is not primarily about catching anybody: it is how you discover that one member of staff signs up three times as many customers as everyone else, and how a franchise works out which site earned the reward another site handed over.
Caps, and why they are worth having
A limit on stamps per customer per day removes the obvious abuse — the same card scanned eight times for one purchase — without affecting a single honest transaction. Set it slightly above your most enthusiastic genuine customer and nobody will ever notice it exists.
Questions
- Should a large order earn more than one stamp?
- It can, and where customers routinely buy for a group it should — otherwise the person paying for four is rewarded the same as the person buying one. Decide the rule before launch so staff are not improvising.
- Can a stamp be removed if added by mistake?
- A correction should be possible and should itself be recorded, so the history stays honest. An adjustment that quietly rewrites the past is worse than the mistake.
Related terms
Digital stamp card
A digital stamp card is a loyalty card that lives on a customer’s phone instead of in their wallet. Staff add a stamp by scanning a code at the counter, and once the card reaches a set number of stamps the customer has earned a reward.
Redemption
Redemption is the moment a customer receives the reward their loyalty card has earned. It is also the point at which the balance is spent — a card is not cleared by reaching its target, but by staff handing the reward over.
Punch card
A punch card is a paper loyalty card that a business marks — with a hole punch or a rubber stamp — once per visit or purchase. When the card is full, the customer earns the reward printed on it.
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