Fivestars A Customer Loyalty Startup Review
Five Stars, a start up customer loyalty card and web service, has recently completed processing 1.3 million customer check ins. This is good news for the start up that began its journey in December 2011 and has grown to encompass 700 participating retailers where the Five Stars service is offered to 250,000 users. Tech Crunch reported the company’s co-founder Victor Ho saying that 100,000 users utilize the service one time every two to three weeks and some avid users are seen to be using it once every week.
Five Star is not the only start up making a name for itself in the customer loyalty sector as competitor Belly has also seen good results. Recent data shows that Belly has completed 1 million check-ins at 1,000 participating locations from 200,000 users. From the numbers alone it can be assumed that the Five Stars program is a more engaging service since a smaller number of users are using the service more often.
This difference is attributed to Five Stars integration into a retailers Point of Sale. The company is using a patented technology that allows them to integrate with 90% of the POS systems in use by sellers. This allows the sellers to see usage data and other metrics in the POS giving them more control and the ability to manage their loyalty program. The easy integration and overall ease of use has kept the turnaround very low with the company claiming that only 2 percent of retailers that sign up with the program leave every month.
Five Stars has also shown good numbers from the monthly subscriptions they charge retailers to join. The latest stats also show that up to date 10 million dollars worth of sales have been routed through their loyalty program. With encouraging results like these the start up can expect a lot of interest from venture capitalists but the company is quiet about any future injection of cash. The only known source of capital totals 2 million dollars and news indicates the company is looking at more sources to help expand operations.
