A digital loyalty card for your butcher's shop

People choose their butcher once and then come back every week, often on the same day: the Saturday-morning shop, a ready meal on Wednesday, préparé for Sunday evening. That habit is your business, and it is also what the supermarket counter and the new slager-traiteur two streets away are trying to break. A loyalty card rewards the weekly visit and gives you a direct line to your regulars for the moments that really matter in a butcher’s year: BBQ season and the Christmas gourmet orders.

What to reward, and after how many stamps?

The best rewards come out of your own kitchen. They cost you little, they show off what you make, and they bring the customer back to the counter to collect them.

• 10A free portion of préparé (filet américain)One stamp per visit from €20, your house rule.
• 8Homemade meatballs in tomato sauceShows off your traiteur side.
• 10A BBQ sausage packPerfect to collect in May or June.
• 12€5 off a gourmet platterPulls Christmas orders back to your shop.

Example calculation. Say a regular spends around €30 per visit and gets a 250 g portion of préparé after 10 stamped visits. That portion sells for about €5 and costs you roughly €2 in meat and work. Over those 10 visits the customer spent €300, so the reward costs you well under 1 % of what they spent with you. These figures are examples: use your own prices and margins.

A card can hold between 3 and 30 stamps. Ten works well for a weekly shopper, because the reward arrives in two or three months. If you change the number later, only new cards follow the new rule; cards that are already running keep theirs.

Which card type fits a butcher?

A stamp card (Essential) is the simplest start: one stamp per visit, optionally from a minimum spend. It fits most neighbourhood butchers, where the basket sits between €15 and €60 and the visit itself is what you want to reward.

A points card (Pro) fits better if your baskets swing a lot, for example a single steak on Tuesday and a €120 order for a family party on Saturday. Staff type the amount on a till-style pad in the scanner, the customer gets 1 point per euro (or whatever rate you choose), and you can set up to six rewards at different levels: meatballs at 100 points, a BBQ pack at 250, a cheese-and-charcuterie board at 500.

VIP levels (Pro) can sit on top: for instance a “Regular” level after 25 visits with a small perk listed on the back of the pass. Keep it modest; your best customers mostly want to be recognised, and the scanner already shows their first name.

How does stamping work during the rush?

Your rush is Saturday from 9 to 12, with a queue at the door and two or three people behind the counter cutting, weighing and wrapping. Keep the scanner out of the cutting area:

• One scanner phone by the till. Put a phone or small tablet on a stand next to the Bancontact terminal. Whoever takes the payment scans the card after the customer pays, cash or Bancontact/Payconiq. Gloves stay on the cutting side.
• PIN login on the shared phone. Staff log in with their own PIN, so every stamp records who gave it, without anyone needing an account on their own phone.
• The scan takes two seconds. The screen shows a big “+1” and the name and progress, for example “Martine · 7/10”, so you can greet her by name while the receipt prints.
• Forgot the eggs? If a customer comes back three minutes later for one more thing, the cooldown (5 minutes by default, adjustable) stops a second stamp on the same card.
• Mistakes. A wrong scan is corrected by the owner or a manager in the dashboard with Adjust stamps; the reason and who made the change are logged.
• Reward days. When the card is full, the pass shows “reward ready”. At the till, tap “Claim + add today’s stamp” so the free préparé is handed over and today’s visit already counts on card number two.

Couples who shop together get one stamp per visit, on the card of whoever pays.

Seasonal and occasion ideas

A butcher’s year has clear peaks. Plan your messages around them:

• Easter: lamb leg and lamb racks, best ordered ahead.
• May to August: BBQ season, with skewers, marinated meat, homemade sausages and ready-to-grill packs. Sunny weekends are made or lost on Thursday.
• Autumn: game season, with venison, hare, pheasant and game pâtés from October.
• Eid al-Adha: if you run a halal butcher’s, early ordering takes the pressure off the busiest days of your year.
• December: the gourmet, fondue and steengrill platters for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. Order lists close early and every year someone forgets.

What to send by push or e-mail

With Pro, you can send a message that appears on the lock screen through the Wallet pass. Only customers who ticked the news box when they joined receive it. A few examples:

• Title: “Gourmet platters: order by 20 Dec” Message: “Gourmet, fondue and steengrill platters for Christmas and New Year. Order in the shop before 20 December and pick up on the 24th or 31st.”
• Title: “Sunny weekend ahead” Message: “BBQ packs, marinated skewers and homemade sausages are ready from Friday. Come before 10 on Saturday to skip the longest queue.”
• Title: “Game season has started” Message: “Venison, hare and our game pâté are back from this week. Ask at the counter for cooking tips.”

E-mail idea: in late November, send your Christmas traiteur menu with photos of the platters and a clear order deadline. Pro e-mails go out under your shop’s name, and replies land in an inbox in your dashboard, so customers can ask questions about quantities.

Keep it to two or three messages a month at most, linked to something real: a deadline, a season, a new product. In Brussels, you can write each message in French, Dutch and English; customers get the language of their phone, and the main language covers anyone else.

Common objections

“My customers already have a paper card.” Keep their progress. A manager can add the stamps a customer already has on paper with a correction, so switching costs them nothing. Some older customers may prefer to keep the paper card for a while, and that is fine.

“The Saturday queue is long enough already.” The scan happens after payment and takes about two seconds. The customer holds up their phone while you hand over the bag. If it ever slows you down, stamp for regulars and skip it for a newcomer who is not set up yet.

“Many of my customers are older.” Plenty of them use Bancontact on their phone. For those who need a hand, joining is a first name and an e-mail address; staff can help in under a minute. Someone without Apple Wallet or Google Wallet gets a web card.

“Does it connect to my till or scale?” No. Fidelia works next to whatever till and scale you use, and it needs an internet connection for the scanner. That is also why a minimum-spend rule is applied by staff, not automatically.

What does it cost?

Essential is €29 a month excl. VAT: one location, one stamp card, unlimited customers and scans, the scanner for the whole team and your first counter stand included. That is enough for most butchers to start. Pro, at €59 a month, adds points by amount, push messages for BBQ and gourmet season, e-mails and stats, and you can try it free for 14 days. Early Belgian merchants can lock in the founding price of €19 a month for Pro, for life.