A pharmacy loyalty card your own customers carry.

What is a digital loyalty card for a pharmacy?

A digital pharmacy loyalty card is a points card kept in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet. Customers earn points on front-of-shop purchases such as skincare, vitamins and baby products, and see their balance on the phone. It replaces the card in the wallet and the sign-up form at the counter, and there is no app to download.

How it works at a pharmacy

• Issue: put a QR code at the register and on the shopping bag, and ask at the point of sale. Customers sign up with only the details you choose. A short form (name and mobile or email) is enough.
• Scan: at the register, staff open the Scan page on a phone or tablet, scan the pass or search by name, email or phone and add points. If you run Shopify for an online store, the Shopify integration can pass order activity to the pass. For other systems, the REST API (Growth and above) can add points.
• Update: a points card shows the running balance, and tiers and automatic rules are available on Growth and above. Change a reward and it updates on every installed pass.
• Push: a message to installed passes about a seasonal offer, such as sunscreen in spring or flu-season stock. You write and send it, and it only goes to people who have added the pass.

Keep health information off the card

Health information is sensitive under the Australian Privacy Principles. Keep prescriptions, conditions and dispensing history out of the pass and out of the signup form. Use the pass for front-of-shop points only. Review the data protection page and the Australia page before you decide what to collect, and take your own advice on your obligations as a pharmacy.

Wallet pass, app or plastic card?

Plastic cards from a banner group are tied to that group's scheme. An app needs a download and a login. An independent pharmacy can run its own wallet pass in a browser, own the customer list and change the offer when it likes. See loyalty cards for how points work, and retail for the shop-floor side.

Running it in a busy pharmacy

The counter is the busiest part of a pharmacy, so the card needs to add seconds, not minutes. Staff ask once, the customer scans the QR code while the sale is processed, and from the next visit the pass is scanned with the purchase. For customers who are not ready to join, there is nothing to hand over and no form to fill in.

Independent pharmacies compete on service as much as price. A points card is a modest way to say thank you to the customers who come every month, and a message about a clinic day or a new service reaches the ones who opted in. Keep the offers to front-of-shop products and services, and take your own advice on any rules that apply to advertising and promotions in your profession.