Local businesses can often struggle to compete with the big brands, but they can now incentivise customers easily by rewarding customer loyalty in an innovative way, thanks to new startup Locify.
It has been developed and launched by Brisbane entrepreneur Meyrick Adams with the support of Phil Gunter, who designed and built Virgin Australia’s Velocity rewards scheme into a successful global loyalty program.
Locify has been designed to increase the frequency and size of transactions for participating businesses, help them to retain existing customers, and acquire new customers.
Customers that sign up to be Locify members earn points quickly at any participating local business and in turn can redeem their points at any business in Australia using the platform.
More than 44,000 consumers have joined Locify and have so far spent over $6 million in local businesses to earn rewards.
Locify Chairman and investor, John Mactaggart, said he was pleased to see a business solution that answered key challenges in a simple and easy to implement manner.
“Locify is a game changer for all types of local businesses with a much simpler and efficient solution than paper or card based models,” he said. “It allows any business to offer very generous rewards to customers that can be used anywhere they see the Locify sign.”
“Locify is the best solution for both local businesses and customers,” founder Mr Adams said.
“It provides them with all the benefits of a big corporate loyalty program at a fraction of the cost, giving them enterprise level technology, valuable data and a new channel for communicating with customers.
“Locify also eliminates all the problems with traditional loyalty schemes, which have led to consumer fatigue and until now deterred many local business owners from offering rewards.”
The Locify rewards program is available as an app, allowing members to find the closest participating businesses offering rewards. Members can enjoy earning and redeeming on-the-go without having to carry any loyalty cards.
Business owners benefit from more awareness in their local area. They are alerted to each member’s arrival and can process transactions in just a few seconds, eliminating the need for time consuming paper or card based systems.
Dozens of local businesses have already signed up with Locify, ranging from coffee shops, restaurants and bars, to breweries, barber shops, day spas and a bowls club.
Popular Brisbane business locations include Fortitude Valley, West End, South Brisbane and Teneriffe but Locify also has businesses in 30 other suburbs around the country.
NewBliss café in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley was one of the first businesses to sign up to Locify, discarding a previous paper-based loyalty program.
Manager Bozena Treutler said more than 60 per cent of NewBliss customers were now Locify members and regularly encouraged their friends and co-workers to join Locify.
“Our previous paper loyalty system was incredibly inefficient with customers losing their cards or having to rummage around looking for the right loyalty card,” Bozena said.
“Locify is incredibly easy to use and very portable because customers can redeem their points at other local businesses.
“We like the fact that it lets us get to know our customers by name and creates a far more personalised café experience for everyone. People appreciate the fact that we don’t just know their coffee order, but we can greet them by name.”
Another Fortitude Valley café using Locify is Bloom on Baxter and owner Aaron Chua (pictured above) is delighted with the results.
“Part of our corporate ethos is that we want to be environmentally friendly and we found the cost of a paper-based rewards system was just too high in terms of the paper used and the actual cost of printing loyalty cards,” Aaron said.
“Supporting local companies is also important to us and there are a lot of companies and businesses around us. It made sense to pick a tool that our local customers would enjoy using and we found Locify to be very user friendly and rewarding.”
Mr Adams said Locify was currently offering a free trial for any local business interested in using the fast-growing platform.
“Locify is very affordable, easy to set up and we provide all the information and support that business owners need to get started on Australia’s best new ‘shop local’ solution.”
