Most retail loyalty programs are discount clubs with a sign-up form. People hand over an address, they get five percent off, and the relationship afterwards looks much like it did before. That works for a while, and it stops working the moment a competitor offers six percent.
A program that holds does three things no discount can do: it grants access, it creates occasions, and it makes people recognizable. Laurens Mauquoi, Chief Digital Officer at nexeye, puts it this way on the Reyo podcast 360 Marketing & CRM: "Clubmore is far more than a discount club. The events in particular create an engagement with the brand that builds a very different kind of loyalty than the traditional one." Clubmore is the loyalty program of the eyewear chain eyes + more, and according to him it has more than two million members across Europe.
This guide covers what a program has to deliver, which mechanics are worth building, how to avoid the most common mistake in measuring repurchase rate, and when a program or an app simply does not pay off. The market section draws on newsletters from German online shops that Reyo recorded over the four weeks from 21 September to 18 October 2026. We do not name the shops, because this is about the patterns, not the senders. And the limit of our data is clear: we see what was sent, not how it performed.
The four things a program has to deliver
| What it delivers | What members get | What you need for it |
|---|---|---|
| Head start | they hear about every promotion first | nothing but discipline in the send plan |
| Exclusivity | offers nobody else can get | margin you give up deliberately |
| Occasion | events, prize draws, experiences | a small budget and some ideas |
| Recognition | being known at every touchpoint | identified purchases and a history |
The first row is the most underrated and the cheapest of the four. Telling members first costs no margin at all. It costs only the willingness not to send a promotion to everyone on day one. At nexeye that is the core mechanic: members hear about every discount campaign ahead of time, there are member-only offers, and there are events and prizes, such as a meet and greet with the brand ambassador.
The fourth row is the precondition for everything that follows. A program is not only a retention measure, it is also how anonymous orders become a purchase history. Without that history, any kind of personalization is guesswork. The next step from there is covered in the guide to hyper-personalization in CRM.
Loyalty program mechanics that actually move something
Early access. The sale opens two days earlier for members. It costs nothing, it only changes the order of events, and it makes membership visibly valuable at the exact moment an offer lands. If you are running the promotion anyway, this mechanic is close to free.
A permanent on-top benefit. Five percent that sits in the basket automatically, no code, no thinking required. The appeal is not the size of it but the fact that members do not have to act. A mechanic that requires a code and a form field loses half its effect right there.
Non-monetary benefits. Ticket pre-sales, service appointments, extended returns, a seat at an event. These cost attention instead of margin, and they are hard to copy, because they are tied to your business rather than to a percentage.
Occasions without a call to buy. This is where a program separates from a discount club. "Discount campaigns do play a role, because they give an immediate benefit to being a member. But engagement with the brand should be central to every CRM strategy," Mauquoi says.
A paid tier is the fifth option and the most demanding one. It only works when the benefit visibly exceeds the fee, and members can cancel after a year.
The repurchase rate mistake
Almost every program is measured on repurchase rate, and almost every measurement is too flattering. Mauquoi describes the error on the podcast: the rate only counts people who bought a second time at all. Anyone who disappears after the first purchase drops out of the statistic, which means the statistic improves the more people you lose.
The second metric that belongs next to it is the share of one-time buyers. Only both numbers together describe what your program does:
- Repurchase rate tells you how fast the loyal ones come back.
- One-time buyer share tells you how many you never reached at all.
- Gap between first and second purchase tells you when to intervene.
In the eyewear market, Mauquoi puts the rhythm at roughly one pair every four years, and at his own company roughly twice as fast. Members, he says, are "incomparably more likely" to buy again. He explicitly does not credit the program alone, but three drivers: the CRM setup including the program, the price position, and the target group. That is the honest reading, and it applies to you as well. A program works in combination, never on its own. How to separate the contribution of individual measures is covered in the guide to campaign performance.
When a program or an app is not worth it
Purchase frequency decides. For an assortment people need every two years, a points account has no rhythm in which it could ever fill up. Mauquoi is blunt about his own app: not a strategic topic, because frequency is too low. An app that gets opened once every few years mainly produces password tickets in customer service. The better investment, he argues, is making the whole experience more personal, all the way into the store.
That gives you a usable test question: how often does your customer base buy in a year? Below two purchases, a points system will not carry, and your own app will carry even less. What does carry is a head start, recognition, and an occasion between purchases. And an occasion is not a date on the calendar: "Nobody buys a pair of glasses for Valentine's Day," as Mauquoi says about emails that go out only because the calendar says so.
What the German market actually sends
Now the reality check against the inbox, with one caveat first. Our recording sees the email that reaches a neutral inbox, not the email sent to a logged-in member. So what is visible is mainly how shops advertise their programs outward, which for this question is exactly the right view.
Roughly one in twelve recorded emails ties its benefit to membership, an account, or an app. Close to one in three shops uses that logic at least once in four weeks. Four examples:
- A sporting goods retailer gave members a five-euro code redeemable on one single day, from midnight to midnight, above an order value of 200 euros, and explicitly included newly registered members.
- A fashion retailer opened its mid-season sale two days before the public start, exclusively for club members, after which the promotion continued as normal.
- The fan shop of a sports club ran a ticket pre-sale restricted to club members with a customer account, capped at two tickets per account, with no price reduction at all.
- A home furnishings retailer combined member prices on individual articles with a one-euro breakfast offer on fixed weekdays in store.
The reading: the mechanics exist, but they are unevenly distributed. Close to a third of these emails work without any price reduction, relying on access, a date, or an experience instead. On early access, the cheapest mechanic of them all, only about one shop in twenty gives members a real head start. And points, the classic currency of the industry, came up at only about a dozen shops across the whole window: roughly three in a thousand emails mention a points balance. The rest of these programs appear in the inbox as a discount channel.
The second reading: the channel gives the program away
What stands out is how often membership is tied to the app. Retailers in groceries, pet supplies, and drugstore goods bound coupons explicitly to their own app, some with a QR code at the till, some restricted to the online shop. One pet supplies retailer promoted a paid annual tier at a reduced fee, with five percent off every order and double points on top. An online pharmacy required a login to the customer account to take part in a prize game, once every 24 hours.
The reading: this is the transition from discount club to data foundation. The app here is less a channel than an ID card. It makes the purchase identifiable, including at the till in a physical store. For high-frequency assortments that is coherent. For anything low-frequency the objection from the section above applies, and then the shop account is the better ID card.
How to build a program that is not a discount club
- Check frequency. Purchases per customer per year, median. Below two, no points system and no app.
- Introduce the head start first. Every promotion goes to members 24 to 48 hours earlier. No extra cost, immediately noticeable benefit.
- Add one non-monetary benefit. An appointment, a service, access, an event. Something a competitor cannot replicate with a percentage.
- Set up both metrics. Repurchase rate and one-time buyer share, always together, always over the same window.
- Send one occasion per quarter with no call to buy. A draw, a look behind the scenes, an invitation. Measured on response, not revenue.
- Decide on the ID card. Shop account or app, one of them, valid at every touchpoint including the store.
Common mistakes
- Making the discount the only mechanic. Then your customers learn the discount instead of the brand, and the program becomes a permanent markdown with admin overhead.
- Points without frequency. An account that never fills demotivates more than it binds.
- Hiding the benefit. If members have to enter a code to receive their member benefit, you give away part of the effect.
- Reporting repurchase rate alone. Without the one-time buyer share, every program looks good.
- Building an app because everyone builds an app. Frequency first, then the channel question.
How Reyo helps
A program never stands alone in the market. Whether your member benefit registers depends on what else is in the inbox that week, and whether your head start is still a head start depends on when competitors open their own promotions. That half is what Reyo supplies:
- Competitor monitoring shows which shops tie offers to membership, accounts, or apps, with which conditions, thresholds, and exclusions.
- The campaign planner puts your member dates next to market dates, so your early access does not land in the week five competitors go public with 30 percent off.
- Marketing recommendations condense market movement into concrete next steps for the current week.
The dates for the current quarter are collected in the Q4 guide 2026. And if you want to work on the measures that function without a membership first, the guide to customer retention in e-commerce collects them.
Conclusion
A loyalty program is not a discount channel with a sign-up, it is a promise of head start, occasion, and recognition. The cheapest mechanic is also the least used one: telling members first costs no margin, and in the German market only about one shop in twenty does it. The most expensive mechanic, the permanent discount, is the one almost everyone starts with.
Add two metrics instead of one, and an honest answer on purchase frequency before anyone commissions an app. Start there and you build a program that still holds when a competitor offers one percentage point more.
Want to see how your competitors tie offers to accounts, apps, and memberships? Book a demo.
This article was published on 22 October 2026.