Tuam, a small town in the Republic of Ireland with a population of 6,900, has launched a town loyalty programme based on Zapa Technology‘s mobile loyalty system. The aim is to encourage local residents to do more of their shopping in Tuam by providing special discounts to people who sign up for the Love Your Town programme.

More than seventy retailers, cafes, pubs, bars, restaurants, hotels and service providers such as opticians, beauty parlours and travel agents, representing the vast majority of Tuam’s local stores, have signed up for the scheme.

Local residents who sign up for Love Your Town receive a ZapaTag — a contactless sticker which they attach to the back of their mobile phone — and then register online on the Love Your Town website. Then,whenever they shop in Tuam, they simply tap their phone at the point of sale to identify themselves as a member of the programme.

In exchange, they receive loyalty points based on their cumulative spend with all the participating outlets which can be exchanged for.a range of special offers and discounts provided by the participating merchants.

“The scheme is a ‘win-win’ for both customers and retailers,” says Zapa. “The beauty of the ZapaTag is that it’s a ‘one size fits all’ system for Tuam, replacing the numerous paper and plastic loyalty cards that customers can be bombarded with. Often customers don’t avail of their rewards in full, but this scheme will ensure that they never miss out again.”

Tuam Chamber of Commerce and Energise Tuam, an initiative by a group of local business people and community representatives to promote the benefits of living and working in the town, first introduced Love Your Town in April as a paper-based scheme where shoppers collected a stamp every time they spent more than €10 and, once they had received ten stamps, could redeem them for a reward from any of the participating retailers.

The move to ZapaTags is aimed at making it as easy as possible for shoppers to collect points. “The ZapaTag system is very simple to use and we are confident that the people of Tuam will quickly see the benefits of being assured of getting all their loyalty bonuses all of the time,” says Love Your Town’s Sarah Roary. “With so many retailers in Tuam offering the ZapaTag, we believe this scheme will be a huge success for both retailer and customer alike.”

With the move to ZapaTags, shoppers are being asked to pay a €10 fee to join. A ‘First Tap Offer’ has been introduced, however, to make it as easy as possible for consumers to justify the outlay. “When you purchase a ZapaTag, Love Your Town will give you instant access to all the offers at participating outlets with your first transaction in those outlets,” the programme’s website explains. “We call it our ‘First Tap Offer’ and it is as if you already have 10 points in each shop. This First Tap Offer alone has the potential to save you €1,000’s over the life of the ZapaTag. Once you have used your First Tap in a store you will begin to gain points as normal on every transaction of €10.”

And, to ensure that shoppers remember to register their tags, registered users are entered into a monthly draw for a shopping voucher and shoppers are reminded that, should they lose their mobile phone, Love Your Town will be able to transfer their points to a new ZapaTag if they have registered their tag online.

“It’s great to see an entire town taking up our ZapaTag technology,” added John Nagle, Zapa Technology’s CEO. “This represents a very exciting move for our ZapaTag and for the future of loyalty and bonus schemes in this country… This is the first time an entire town has been blanketed with Zapa technology and we’re very excited about it.”

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