Loyalty Scan Assistant

For

Operations leads at independent shops

Solves

Independent shops cannot run loyalty programmes without expensive or complex tools.

Delivers

Points balances, reward alerts, visit history

Built in

about 3 weeks of creation time, MVP in 3 days

Investment

$6,000 for the MVP, $20,500 for the full product

Run it

Inside your business, or as part of your offer to clients

For operations leads at independent shops, turn customer phone numbers, purchase amounts and visit logs into a simple points balance and reward alerts.

1. Create a shop account with name and phone number.
2. Generate a unique QR code for the till.
3. Log a visit by scanning the QR code and entering a phone number.
4. Record purchase amount via photo of the till display or manual entry.
5. Update points balance and check reward thresholds.
6. Send SMS alerts for rewards and notify the shopkeeper on the tablet.

What goes in, what comes out

The workflow

1. In
   Start with

   Phone numbers, purchase amounts, visit timestamps

2. 1

   Shop signs up

3. 2

   Prints QR code

4. 3

   Customer scans on first visit

5. 4

   Enters name and phone number

6. 5

   Returns scan on each visit

7. 6

   AI logs purchase amount

8. 7

   Points update

9. 8

   Reward triggers SMS and tablet alert

10. 9

    Shopkeeper taps to redeem

11. Out
    Finish with

    Points balances, reward alerts, visit history

AI does the heavy lifting, people stay in charge

Use AI to read purchase amounts from photos of till displays, matching phone numbers to customer records. A human shopkeeper reviews each logged amount and confirms redemptions before they are applied.

What your team sees

Key screens: Shop setup, QR code print, visit log, points dashboard. Use a simple home screen with a large QR code for customers to scan. Show recent visits and points on a tablet dashboard. Allow manual entry of purchase amounts as a fallback. Display reward thresholds and alerts for the shopkeeper. In this product, the first view is shop setup, followed by QR code print, visit log and points dashboard.

Accounts and administration

Shop owner account, staff permissions, visit logs, points adjustments, reward redemptions, audit trail of all changes

Integrations and data access

Start with SMS gateway, then add POS systems like Square or Shopify, and later accounting software.

We build with our own AI software development factory, so most implementations take days to a few weeks of creation time, not months. You see working software at every step, and exact timing depends on availability.

1. 1

   Scoping call

   Day 1

   Thirty minutes on your process, your data and how you want to run it: for your own team, or for your clients. You get a fixed scope and price for the MVP.

2. 2

   MVP

   3 days

   One buyer segment, one recurring use case; first modules: QR scan and points ledger. Manual review in the loop. Built by our AI software factory.

3. 3

   Paid pilot

   4 days

   Accounts, roles, review states, audit trail and the first integration, hardened for two to three paying pilot customers.

4. 4

   Full product

   7 days

   Self-serve onboarding, billing, monitoring and the wider integration set.

5. 5

   Run and improve

   Monthly

   We host, monitor and improve it for a fixed monthly fee, or hand it over to your team. How the retainer works.

Why we start with an MVP

An MVP, or minimum viable product, is the smallest version that your users can actually work with. It is not a cheap version of the full solution. It is a test, built to answer the questions that decide whether the rest is worth building.

1. Pick the riskiest assumption. Here: will operations leads at independent shops use it to solve "independent shops cannot run loyalty programmes without expensive or complex tools"?
2. Build only what tests it. One team, one use case, a few core modules. People do the rest by hand for now.
3. Run a paid pilot. Run a 4-week paid pilot with a coffee shop and a hairdresser.
4. Measure, then decide. Track percentage of repeat customers who scan on each visit; reward redemption rate within 30 days. Then expand, change course or stop, with evidence instead of opinions.

MVP scope for this solution. One buyer: a neighbourhood coffee shop. One use case: loyalty points on purchases. First two modules: QR scan and points ledger. Manual review of AI-read amounts by the shopkeeper.

After the MVP. After the paid pilot, automate photo reading with fewer manual checks, add voice recognition for repeat customers, and integrate with basic POS systems via APIs.

What the build depends on. Reliable OCR for till displays, a simple database for points, and a lightweight tablet interface.

A planning range to start the conversation, not a quote. You pay per phase, so you can stop after the MVP.

Running costs per month

A rough indication of monthly hosting and AI model costs once it is live, not tested. Real costs depend on usage, file sizes and the models chosen.

Your brand, or this one

Run it under your own brand, or start from this concept style.

Selling it to your own clients: the go-to-market playbook

Pricing to test

Test pricing at $29 per month per shop after a free tier for up to 50 returning customers.

Message to test

Your shop's loyalty programme, no app, no cards, just a scan.

Where to find buyers

Local business meetups, social media groups for independent shop owners, and partnerships with shop supply distributors.

Lead magnet

Free QR code and first month of unlimited customers, no credit card required.

The first 30 days

1. Week 1: Build shop setup and QR generation.
2. Week 2: Implement scan and points logging.
3. Week 3: Add photo reading of till displays.
4. Week 4: Test with two pilot shops and iterate on accuracy.

Paid pilot

Run a 4-week paid pilot with a coffee shop and a hairdresser. Baseline: current loyalty redemption rate. Decision: proceed if at least 30% of customers use the scan and redemption rate increases by 20%.

Success metrics

Percentage of repeat customers who scan on each visit; reward redemption rate within 30 days.

Retention and expansion

Continue charging a monthly fee and keep the shop engaged with monthly reports on customer visits and reward usage, plus periodic feature updates.

Why clients would pick it

The more shops use it, the better the AI becomes at reading diverse till displays and recognising customer patterns, creating a data moat.

Alternatives and positioning

Plastic cards, paper loyalty cards, or expensive POS-integrated platforms. This differs by being low-cost, no-integration, and using AI to reduce manual entry.

Main delivery costs

Cloud hosting, SMS API costs, AI model inference for image reading, and support staff for shopkeepers.

Limit access to shop owner and staff. Require manual confirmation for every reward redemption. Do not share customer data with third parties. Ensure AI-read amounts are verified by the shopkeeper before points are posted.