Reward Loyalty · Industry guide · Illustrative settings
https://rewardloyalty.co/use-cases/quilt-shop-loyalty-program
Industry guide · Quilt, fabric & yarn shops
A quilt shop loyalty program for the customer who buys a whole quilt at once
Use tiers to recognise the customer who spends $400 on one project without discounting the one who spends $8, and hand out a printed card because nobody here is scanning a QR at a cutting counter.
Recommended starting program
Start with one mechanism customers can remember.
Award one point per $1 of eligible spend at the cutting counter. Four hundred points unlock a $20 credit. Add three tiers so the customer who buys for a whole quilt earns at a better rate.
Earn rate
1 point per $1 eligible
Reward
$20 credit at 400 points
Tiers
Base 1x, Silver 1.25x, Gold 1.5x
Machines
Excluded. They earn nothing
Why this fits
The trade decides the mechanism.
This guide covers independent quilt, fabric, and yarn shops with a staffed cutting counter, selling cloth, notions, patterns, and yarn, and running classes and sit-and-sew sessions. It excludes sewing-machine dealerships whose revenue is mostly machine sales, longarm rental studios, online-only fabric retailers, and haberdashery counters inside a department store.
The basket range is the problem tiers exist to solve. A customer buys an $8 fat quarter on Tuesday and $400 of fabric, wadding, and thread for one quilt on Saturday. A flat card treats those the same. Tiers qualify on lifetime points earned, so the quilter who buys for whole projects moves up and earns at a better rate, while the browser who buys a fat quarter is never made to feel like a lesser customer.
The cutting counter is the wrong moment to ask anyone to sign up. She is standing there with a bolt of fabric and a queue behind her, and a join code asks her to stop and register on a phone. A printed card moves that step out of the queue. She takes the card, claims it in her own time, and from then on staff scan, swipe, or read out the number, so she never needs a phone at the counter again. For a customer already visible to the business you can issue a single card pre-linked to her, with nothing to claim at all. Blank batches go to the quilt-show booth, and each batch reports how many of its cards were claimed, so the booth proves whether it paid for itself.
The project cycle is long and quiet. A quilter buys $120 of fabric and disappears for eight weeks to sew it. That is why the weekly-run milestones stay off here: a run needs a loyalty day every week, and this customer will miss whole months without having gone anywhere.
Customer journey
From the first QR to a reason to return.
The program should follow the transaction or appointment that already exists. It should not create a second queue.
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01
See it
A counter card explains the points and the tiers, with no app to install.
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02
Take a card
Staff hand over a printed card. She claims it in her own time, or takes one pre-linked if she is already a member.
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03
Earn at the cutting counter
Staff key the eligible subtotal while measuring yardage, before the till.
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04
Move up a tier
Lifetime points decide the tier, so a big project moves a customer up and keeps her there.
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05
Redeem
Four hundred points produce a $20 credit toward fabric, notions, or a class.
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06
Start the next quilt
The next project brings her back, weeks later, with the card still in her purse.
Exact program setup
Configure the base program before the campaign.
Complete the steps in order. Each documentation link opens the current 5.x setup guide for that task.
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1
Exclude machines and longarms first
A $6,000 machine at one point per $1 mints 6,000 points, which is $300 of rewards on a unit whose margin cannot carry it, and it would jump that buyer straight to the top tier on a single sale. Machines, longarms, and their servicing earn nothing.
Set the earn rule -
2
Key the subtotal at the cutting counter
Staff enter the eligible amount by hand while the fabric is being measured. Exclude gift cards, machine deposits, and anything already discounted.
Key the eligible subtotal -
3
Add three tiers on lifetime points
Create a base tier at level 0 with no threshold and a 1x multiplier, then Silver at 1,500 lifetime points with 1.25x and Gold at 5,000 with 1.5x. The lowest-level active tier automatically becomes the starting point for new members, so skip the base tier and every new customer starts on Silver, the 1,500-point threshold gates nothing, and the ladder collapses. Tiers qualify on lifetime points earned, which never fall, so a customer keeps her status through a quiet season.
Set up membership tiers -
4
Print member cards for the counter and the show booth
Order a batch of blank cards. Staff hand one over and the customer claims it herself, which keeps the sign-up out of the queue. For a customer already visible to the business, issue one pre-linked card instead, which needs no claiming. Each batch reports how many of its cards were claimed.
Run a card batch -
5
Activate three fixed milestones and leave the runs off
Turn on 5 loyalty days, First reward enjoyed, and One year together. Leave the weekly-run milestones off, because a project cycle puts eight quiet weeks between visits and a run would never complete.
Review milestone conditions
Achievement strategy
Use milestones as a supporting layer.
Reward Loyalty provides a curated catalog of predefined, one-time milestones. The business chooses which achievements to activate and whether to attach an optional reward. Names, thresholds, measured events, and formulas stay fixed.
A loyalty day records qualifying loyalty activity on a distinct business-local date. It is not a configurable product, service, branch, booking-source, or purchase-count rule. See the fixed achievement catalog and progress rules.
Exact Reward Loyalty name
5 loyalty days
- Fixed milestone
- Earn loyalty days on 5 different dates.
- Why it matters here
- Five distinct dates spans several projects for this customer, so it recognises a returning quilter rather than a busy month.
- Reward approach
- Use recognition, or a small notions credit. Never a machine discount.
- Guardrail
- It counts dates. On a project cycle those dates may be months apart, which is normal here and is not a lapse.
- 30-day check
- Completions, and the median days between recorded visits.
Exact Reward Loyalty name
First reward enjoyed
- Fixed milestone
- Redeem your first reward.
- Why it matters here
- The first redemption proves staff can apply a credit at a busy cutting counter without holding up the queue.
- Reward approach
- Use recognition. The credit already delivered the benefit.
- Guardrail
- Do not attach a second reward, and never let a credit be applied to a machine.
- 30-day check
- First redemptions, and redemptions that stalled at the counter.
Exact Reward Loyalty name
One year together
- Fixed milestone
- Earn a loyalty day a full year after your first.
- Why it matters here
- A qualifying loyalty day a full year after the first suits a trade whose customers measure time in projects, not weeks.
- Reward approach
- Use recognition, or a class credit. It pairs well with a tier the customer already holds.
- Guardrail
- It proves a long relationship. It is not a spend measure, and the tier already handles spend.
- 30-day check
- Eligible members, completions, and later eligible spend.
Before attaching value, review achievement reward availability, expiry, and grant caps.
Reward economics
Show the arithmetic before approving the reward.
Illustrative calculation
Illustrative example: $400 of eligible spend earns 400 points and produces a $20 credit. A Silver member at 1.25x reaches the same credit on $320 of spend, and a Gold member at 1.5x on about $267.
The base face-value rate is 5%. Silver runs at 6.25% and Gold at 7.5%. Those are the rates you are choosing to pay your best customers, so set the thresholds where the fabric margin can carry them.
Cost the credit against fabric and notions margin, which is where a quilt shop makes money. Machines are a thin-margin unit sale and are excluded for that reason, not as an oversight. Cost the tier multipliers separately, because a Gold member earns half again as fast for the rest of their life.
Margin protections
- Exclude sewing machines, longarms, machine servicing, and machine deposits from the eligible subtotal.
- Exclude gift cards and anything already discounted.
- Set tier thresholds on lifetime points, and check what a single large project does to them before you go live.
- Cap the credit and refuse stacking with a class coupon in the same sale.
- Do not offer a tier benefit you cannot honour in a busy week, such as priority cutting.
Where to promote it
Put the invitation inside the existing visit.
- Cutting counter: the card, handed over rather than scanned.
- Class sign-up sheet: the points a class fee earns.
- Quilt-show booth: a stack of blank cards, and a batch that reports its own claim rate.
- Receipt: print the tier and the distance to the next one.
Staff script and operating routine
One line, at the right moment.
“Fabric and notions earn a point per dollar, and once you reach Silver they earn faster. Machines do not earn.”
- Best moment
- At the cutting counter, while measuring yardage, before the customer reaches the till.
- Operating habit
- Hand over a printed card, key the eligible subtotal with machines left out, and let her claim the card in her own time.
- Common staff mistake
- Ringing a machine into the subtotal. It hands out $300 of rewards and puts that buyer in the top tier on one sale.
- If a scan or lookup fails
- If the customer has no phone with them, type the printed member card number at the cutting counter and confirm the account before you key the subtotal.
First campaign
Wait until the base program works.
A campaign should address one observed behaviour. It should not compensate for missed awards, unclear terms, or an untrained team.
- Audience
- If the account includes Member segments, save one that combines a balance at or above 200 points AND below 400 points. Otherwise postpone this campaign.
- Offer
- No discount. Remind the member that the $20 credit starts at 400 points, and name the classes and ranges it can be spent on.
- Timing
- Send after four weeks of clean subtotals, and time it to the start of a class term rather than the middle of one.
- Intended behaviour
- Bring back a quilter who is close to a reward, at the point in the year when the next project starts.
- Measure
- Delivered emails against later eligible spend and credit claims. Reward Loyalty does not track email opens or clicks.
30-day review
Use the first month to fix operation and economics.
Thirty days can reveal adoption, workflow, progress, and reward-cost problems. It is too early to claim proven lifetime value or long-term retention.
Machine sales that earned in error
One is a training slip. Several means the till rule is wrong, and the tier table is now wrong too.
Cards linked from each printed batch
The batch reports its own claim rate, so the quilt-show booth proves whether it paid for itself.
Members reaching Silver
If nobody reaches it, the threshold is too high for your basket. Look at lifetime points, not one month.
Points against eligible sales
A gap means staff are keying the till total rather than the counter subtotal.
Days between recorded visits
Long gaps are normal on a project cycle. Do not read them as churn, and do not chase them with a discount.
Common mistakes
What to stop before launch.
- Awarding points on a sewing machine or a longarm.
- Activating the weekly-run milestones, which a project cycle can never complete.
- Asking a customer to stop and sign up on a phone while a queue builds behind her.
- Skipping the base tier at level 0, which quietly makes Silver the starting point for every new member.
- Setting tier thresholds without checking what one large project does to them.
- Promising a tier benefit, such as priority cutting, that a busy Saturday cannot honour.
Printable launch checklist
Quilt, fabric & yarn shops launch plan
- Exclude machines, longarms, and servicing, in writing.
- Set 1 point per $1 on the cutting-counter subtotal.
- Set the $20 credit at 400 points.
- Model what one $400 project does to a tier threshold.
- Create a base tier at level 0, then Silver at 1,500 and Gold at 5,000 lifetime points.
- Order a batch of blank member cards.
- Activate 5 loyalty days, First reward enjoyed, and One year together.
- Leave the weekly-run milestones off.
- Book the 30-day review on machine-line errors.
Owner: __________________
Launch: ________________
30-day review: __________
Implementation guides
Open only the setup pages this program needs.
These links point to the current Reward Loyalty 5.x documentation.