Paper punch card, an app or a wallet card: what fits your business

Three ways, one sentence each

• Paper punch card: a printed card that is punched or stamped on every visit. The customer keeps it in their wallet.
• The business's own app: an app the customer downloads from the store, with a loyalty club inside and sometimes orders and payment too.
• A card in the phone wallet: a digital punch card saved in Google Wallet on Android or Apple Wallet on iPhone, with nothing to download.

The comparison

Paper punch card: who it fits

Paper still works, and there is no reason to be ashamed of it. Customers understand it without explanation, and it needs no phone or reception. If you open tomorrow and want something simple, it is a good way to start. A business with few regulars, where you know each one by name, can also manage well with it.

The downside shows over time. Cards are forgotten at home, washed in a pocket, and sometimes a card arrives with more punches than anyone remembers. Most important: you have no list. You do not know who is close to a reward, or who stopped coming.

There is also a small matter of trust. When the punches are with the customer, the staff member has to decide whether to believe the card in front of them. Most customers are honest, but this situation is not pleasant for either side.

An app: who it fits

An app gives you the most room. You can put in ordering ahead, payment, a menu and a loyalty club. For a business with a large audience whose customers already order through it, this can be right.

For a small business, the difficulty is the download. A customer standing at the register with a cup of coffee in hand will not always want to free up space on their phone and open an account. And even after they download it, the app needs updates and maintenance.

One more question worth asking before you build: what will make the customer open the app a second time? If the answer is only the punch card, a whole app may be more than you need.

A wallet card: who it fits

A card in the phone wallet sits in the middle. The customer downloads nothing, because Google Wallet and Apple Wallet are already on the phone. The card sits next to the credit cards, and you get an organized list of who comes and when.

It has another advantage paper cannot give: the card talks to the customer. After every visit it updates in the wallet, for example "2 more visits to your reward", and the customer sees it without opening anything. And if the customer changes phones, the card is restored and the visits stay.

It fits less if most of your customers have no smartphone, or if you need ordering and payment in the same place. In that case you can also keep paper for whoever prefers it, and move them to digital gradually.

The real cost of each way

The price on paper is only part of the story. Think also about your time and your staff's time.

• Paper: printing is cheap, but every mistake, every lost card and every argument at the register costs time. And at the end you have no information.
• An app: beyond building it, there are updates, compatibility with new phone versions, and someone who has to handle problems.
• A wallet card: you pay for a service. What matters is to check what is included, who sets it up, and what happens to your customer list if you stop.

Three questions before you choose

1. How often does a regular customer come to you? Frequent visits fit a punch card. A visit once a month fits a prepaid package or a recognition card better.
2. What do you want to know? If you only want to give a reward, paper does that. If you want to know who comes back and who disappeared, you need a list.
3. What are you asking of the customer at the moment they join? Every extra step at the register, like a download or a password, lowers the number of people who join.

Moving from paper to digital without losing anyone

If you already have a paper punch card, you do not need to cancel it in one day. A customer holding a card with seven punches will not want to start from zero, and rightly so.

• Set a date from which you hand out only a digital card, but keep honoring existing paper cards.
• When a customer comes with a paper card, move their punches to the card on their phone, and you approve the move.
• Collect the old card, so it is not counted twice.
• Whoever does not want a phone card continues with paper. That is fine.

How it works with Shortip

Shortip is a wallet card, a service of Joya-Tech that Gal sets up with you at your business, in Haifa and northern Israel.

• The customer scans, types a phone number and gets a code. There is no app to download.
• The card is saved in the phone wallet, on Android and on iPhone.
• Each staff member uses their own phone: scans the card and presses the button. The scan only identifies. The visit is recorded only when the staff member presses.
• Changed phones? The card is restored with a code, and the visits stay.
• A customer with a paper punch card? You move their visits over, with your approval.
• Your customer list, as a file, at any moment.

Frequently asked questions