Specialty Retailer Bling Bling Drives Sales Through Loyalty

By Bob Johns

June 2013 Integrated Solutions For Retailers

This small retailer is driving repeat and referral business by teaming up with other local businesses for a joint loyalty card.

There are advantages and disadvantages to being a small retailer. On one hand, you get to make all of the company decisions and to control your brand. On the other hand, it is tough to compete against multimillion dollar retailers with seemingly limitless resources. One area where the big boys always seem to have an edge is loyalty programs designed to drive repeat business.

Small local businesses always have had issues tracking loyalty. The big companies have credit and loyalty cards and sophisticated POS systems to track customers. Small businesses have limited resources and less customer tracking ability.

Bling Bling, a two-location specialty retailer in San Francisco, faced the problem of creating a new loyalty program to encourage customers to keep coming back. The company had an internal loyalty program that offered little in the way of incentives and was difficult to track internally. Owner Kim Lo needed a way to see if her promotions were working and if her customers were returning more often.