Loyalty Punch and Stamp Card Systems, Beware

Tired of having several punch or stamp cards in your wallet? If so, Five Stars Card, the self-proclaimed “universal loyalty card,” could have a solution for you.  

The company offers a rewards system that makes use of a card or a phone number to keep track of purchases at business that have signed up for the point-based rewards program. When customers open one account with a participating business, they automatically sign up for all others.

Five Stars Card has more then 200 businesses registered with its rewards system from around the Bay Area. Thirty of these are based in either Palo Alto or Menlo Park.  

One satisfied business in Palo Alto employing the rewards system is The 3^rd Door, a social and fitness club that uses the point-based system in its café.

“It is extremely flexible in terms of how we set up the program, what we give points for and how they are redeemed,” said Dianne Giancarlo, owner of The 3^RD Door. The points required for a reward are easy to arrange, giving owners the control they want.

The system also ensures that clients participate in the program with their purchases. “I like that customers can use the card or their phone number, so it is easy for them to get their points.” 

The doing-away of physical stamp or loyalty cards and replacing that with digital tracking of customer purchases is seen by Five Stars Card as a more effective, comfortable and safer way of obtaining loyalty points.  

“I think we are all a little tired of those" non-digital cards, said Eric Burdullis, account manager for Five Stars Card. The company sees paper cards as an inefficient way to carry out a loyalty program, because they are easy to lose. "You get punch cards from lots of different businesses, and your wallet's probably full of them.” 

Five Stars Card was founded in Cupertino last summer. At that point, the company was working out of a living room with only four employees. It now manages its operations from an office with 25 employees in Mountain View.  

“We have been pretty successful,” said Burdullis. “It is very exciting to see how much we have grown.”

Five Stars Card has as part of its core strategy the implementation of a financially manageable and effective rewards programs for small, independent businesses, like the one above.

“I think one of our strengths is small businesses,” said Burdullis. Large companies with successful loyalty programs can spend a lot of money on their customer rewards programs, which can result in more purchases at their stores.  The Five Stars Card strives to give a similar product to small businesses.

“Our thought was how to create a loyalty program that uses the same technology as Fortune 500 firms," said Burdullis, "and make it successful for small businesses.”

That being said, Five Stars Card has tried to pitch its product to some franchises with corporate oversight, which has lead to some difficulty.

“We are in the process of getting rid of the Five Stars Card system,” said Charley Zhang of Palo Alto's Yoppi Yogurt. He cited some operational problems and highlighted franchise rules as the main reason behind this decision.

“Most importantly, our corporate partners do not approve using them, since we have our own rewards system already,” Zhang said in an email.

Despite this, Five Stars Card insists that its overall success will continue and that it has had good partnerships with others businesses that have corporate partners.

“We have also found success at some of the more open franchises, like Tutti Frutti,” said Burdullis.