Many loyalty programs pose a difficult hurdle for both retailers and consumers. For shoppers, carrying loyalty cards for every store you frequent is a tremendous hassle. For small- and medium-sized businesses, a loyalty program can be time consuming and/or costly to enact.
Smartphones: Our Greatest Shopper Tool
It’s no surprise then that as conversation turns more and more to the mobile wallet and the use of Near-Field Communication for payment systems, companies are looking to innovate around other items in our wallet. Starbucks took their payment card system mobile and saw over 26 million transaction this year. This drives not only easy payment but also loyalty; even better, it produces a wealth of consumer data for Starbucks to work with. DATA! IS! FUN!
Making It Easy
It’s all well and good for Google and Starbucks to explore mobile payment and loyalty, but what about businesses who don’t have the time and money on-hand? Enter Belly, a digital loyalty system on an iPad.
Belly from Bellycard.com on Vimeo.
What’s great about this? For a retailer, it allows them to get a loyalty program up and running in no time. For shoppers, It works if you do or do not have a smartphone, and it only requires one card or one app, regardless of where you are using it. VOILA!
What’s In Your Wallet?
What do you have in your wallet that you wish you could take digital? Have you experienced any other great innovations in loyalty programs or digital wallets? Is there something you wish you could offer your customers? Tell us.