For your business
Loyalty cards for bakeries
A bakery has two kinds of regular: the neighbour who buys bread every morning, and the family that orders a cake for every birthday. A good loyalty card rewards both without making the morning queue any longer.
How bakery customers visit
Bread is bought often and in small amounts, usually in the morning. Cakes and pastry boxes are bought less often and cost more. The same customer can spend very little on Tuesday and a lot on Saturday.
Most regulars live or work nearby, and many pass your window every day. For a bakery, being remembered at the right moment is half the job.
A suggested card setup
Because baskets vary so much, a points card is usually the fairest choice:
- Card type: points, 1 point for every 1 ₼. A big order moves a customer further than a single loaf, as it should.
- First reward: a free loaf or a pastry of their choice, at a level a daily customer reaches within a few weeks.
- Second reward: a box of pastries or a small cake, for customers who also order for special occasions.
If you mostly sell bread at one price, a stamp card is simpler: one stamp per loaf, the 10th free. You can switch a card from stamps to points later, and existing balances move across to the new type.
Reminders and location
A few settings keep your bakery on your customers’ minds:
- Location: add your shop, and the card comes up on the customer’s lock screen when they are within about 150 metres. With several branches, you can add up to 10 locations, depending on your plan. This is not a message, so it never counts against the gap between your messages.
- Nearly there: when a customer is close to a free loaf.
- Reward ready: when the balance reaches the reward.
- We miss you: after 21 days without a visit.
A message of your own works well too, for example when a fresh batch comes out of the oven on a slow afternoon: “Maya, warm bread just out of the oven.” It can be up to 150 characters, can include the customer’s first name, and goes out within your opening hours.
At the counter
Mornings are busy. The customer holds up the card, staff scan it with the tablet by the till, type the amount and confirm. The progress bar shows the new balance first, so mistakes are caught before they are saved, and the card updates on the customer’s phone straight away.
The cooldown, 30 minutes by default, stops the same card earning twice for one purchase. If the customer comes back in the afternoon for a cake, they earn again as usual.