Auntie Kate The Resale Expert

If your shop issues Frequent Buyer Cards, remember, they’re more useful than you think. Some ideas that go beyond just punching:

* Use an “extra punch” or “double punches” to motivate shopping. Instead of reducing your prices, simply promote by offering more punches when you need to move a too-full category. Especially useful when you want to sell down a category that’s a slow mover or whose time is quickly waning: holiday items in early December, for example.

* Extra punches are also great to reward seniors, the military, donors to your charity drive, as an apology when it looks like you may be losing a customer or supplier.

* Remember that punches don’t cost you much, if anything… but they are perceived as extra value!

* Speaking of perceived value: Do they get a gift certificate in exchange for their filled FBC? They should!

* Consider structuring your FBC so that they expire at the end of the calendar year. Gives you a great reason to email, blog, or otherwise notify your customers to “Fill your FBCs now and redeem them!” That alone might get shoppers in during the December shopping period.

* Perhaps a “donate your FBC to charity” event in early January? They bring in their not-filled but expired FBCs to donate to a charity… you give them a fresh new FBC with a “free punch” for having done so, and the total value of all the punches on all the unredeemed cards, you grant (amidst great media fanfare of course) to whichever charity your shop can help. Details in an earlier post here on the Auntie Kate blog.

For layout ideas, information on variable qualifiers and how to turn an FBC into a Gift Certificate, see The FBC Idea Kit on our Too Good to be Threw Products for the Professional Resaler Layout Ideas Shop.