I am going to start a frequent buyer card to reward my loyal customers as well as try to get more loyal customers, I have been wanting to do this for a while but am now going to buckle down and get them printed. It will be like your typical coffee card where you get a stamp for every purchase you make and when you get to a specific amount you get your reward. What I am having trouble with is what should the reward be? I wasn't sure what was appropiate, like 10% off your next purchase or free dozen cupcakes or what. Also, how many orders should you have to make before you get the reward? Is 10 too many? Any opinion would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

It's really up to you . . .

For me, it would depend on what you had to buy to get something free. Am I buying 10 cakes? Then maybe you want to give a free 'generic' style cake (yellow or chocolate with buttercream frosting) after ten purchases.

If you buy 10 dozen cupcakes, then maybe you want to give away 6 free cupcakes or a dozen.

Sometimes, people are just happy to get anything. We did a free cupcake promotion with every cake sold (back when we did cakes) and it was a big success. People just liked knowing they were getting something free . . . it does not have to be big or expensive.

I would definitely go with free product as opposed to a discount off a future order.

This might be difficult to implement if you focus only on custom cakes, instead of a specific number of orders you may want to go with a dollar amount threshold. This could also give customers some flexibility as to when they redeem the card -- e.g. redeem at $250 for six free cupcakes, $500 for a dozen cupcakes, $750 for a free basic 8" cake, etc.

You should also take this opportunity to increase your prices to cover the cost of the promotion (and more if you can), you should have plenty of room to go up since your prices are pretty low.

The dollar amount instead of orders makes sense so maybe I will do something like you will get a punch in your card for every blank amount you spend and when you spend so much you will get your free product. I am thinking cupcakes would probably be the best thing to give away since they are so easy to make and much less expensive to produce. I have been steady increasing my prices for the last few years, I did not want to do drastic price increases for my repeat customers. Even though my prices are low I still get a lot of sticker shock which always makes me mad because I know if you go anywhere else the price is at least double or more. Thanks for your advice, it gives me a better idea of what I need to do.

Just now seeing this post, I am going to offer 1 dozen regular cupcakes when the customer has purchased their 12th dozen. All cc's have to be the same flavor as right now I will only be a commercial kitchen, where a minimum advance order is needed. Just thought I'd let you know. I am also going to use a punch shaped like a cupcake so that there's no cheating, which can happen.

A lot of sewing and needlework shops use punch cards that track the actual amounts spent (punching the closest numbers of $$$). The card is then redeemed for a fixed $$$ that is 5% of purchases.