The biggest brands in the world spent this year racing to build loyalty programmes.
You can build one this afternoon.
My local coffee place still uses a paper card.
Nine stamps and the tenth one is free.
Mine lives in a drawer with three others. I have no idea how many stamps are on any of them.
They know I come in most weeks. They cannot prove it, cannot reward it properly and cannot reach me when they need to.
That is the whole problem in one small piece of card.
Now look at what everyone else has been doing about the same problem.
John Lewis Partnership has told staff it wants more than £100 million in extra profit from joining up the John Lewis and Waitrose loyalty schemes, plus £180 million a year from retail media, all part of a three-year turnaround plan for Britain's largest employee-owned company.
It has been like this all year.
American Airlines opened the year handing out up to 5,000 bonus loyalty points to get members moving early. Etihad linked its frequent flyer programme to a major hotel group so points travel between flights and stays. Lidl scrapped its old coupon system in May and replaced it with proper points.
Best Buy bolted points onto its paid memberships.
7-Eleven went live on a shared points system alongside four other chains.
Revolut pushed its rewards scheme into another market.
Tesco Clubcard sits on around 20 million UK households and Nectar pools points across Sainsbury's, eBay, Argos and BP.
Airlines, hotels, supermarkets, banks, electronics, forecourts.
Everybody with a budget is racing to build the same thing.
Strip away the press releases and every one of these schemes does three jobs.
Know who your customers are.
Give them a reason to come back.
Reward them when they do.
That is it. No jargon required.
The reason it costs millions is that big companies have to bolt this onto old systems, get legal to sign it off and convince two brands under one roof to share a database.
John Lewis is spending part of a turnaround plan just getting John Lewis and Waitrose talking to each other.
You have none of that. No legacy systems. No committee.
Here is the bit worth understanding.
Almost every one of these schemes is a walled garden. Points earned at Boots die at Boots. Your Clubcard is worth nothing to the shop next door.
The clever ones have spotted it. That is why Etihad went looking for a hotel partner and why five separate chains agreed to share one points system. It took them months of deals and a platform built to order.
We started there.
We call it Liquid Loyalty, loyalty that flows where everyone wants it to go and it is the reason CNKT exists.
CNKT gives you a membership and rewards layer that looks like your business.
Your name, your colours, your site.
You choose what counts. A visit. A booking. A pre-order. A referral. A share.
Your members build up rewards and hit tiers.
Early access. Members-only nights. Discounts. A drop only they can get.
They join with an email address. No wallets to set up, no crypto language, nothing for them to learn.
The technology stays out of the way where it belongs.
You can build the whole thing yourself, either by describing what you want or by dragging it into place like any website builder.
John Lewis is spending millions to learn what your regulars already are.
You know their faces. You know their orders. You just have no way of holding on to any of it.
Nine stamps and the tenth is free was a good idea.
It deserves a better system.
Come and build yours at ttcnkt.xyz.