Someone will drive across town in bad weather to protect a 40 week streak. Not for a discount. For the number.
The plumbing stopped being the hard part. POS customer profiles identify the person at the door. Native store credit issues the reward without a third party ledger. Flow increments a counter in a metafield. No punch card, no app download, no staff member trying to remember faces.
What the customer does: taps a phone against an NFC point by the entrance. The screen confirms week 12. Thresholds at 4, 12, 26, and 52 weeks earn things money cannot buy directly. Early access to a drop. The back room. A standing table on Fridays. The right to bring a guest. What you operate: a threshold table, a Flow rule, and a tap point that costs less than a window display.
The reason this beats points is what it measures. Points reward the biggest basket, which mostly rewards the customer you already have. A streak rewards frequency, and frequency is the better predictor of lifetime value. It also manufactures a reason to walk in on a day when nobody needs anything.
The honest catch: streaks punish. Break 1 and the customer feels worse than before they started, and a share of them quietly stop coming. Build forgiveness in from day 1, whether that is a skip per quarter or a freeze they can buy with store credit. And it only works with density. If your nearest location is a 40 minute drive for most members, a weekly cadence is a trap you set for yourself.
Points tell a customer what they spent. A streak tells them who they are. Only 1 of those hurts to lose.
