Why we do what we do

We want Ferret Card to be the world's biggest rewards program. We want a

Ferret in every store on Earth. And as part of that goal, we want you to

understand our strategies, our beliefs, and to know why we do what we do.

1. Complete payment system neutrality

To be the world's biggest rewards program, we must be completely NEUTRAL with regards to

payment systems. Ferret Card users must be able to earn stamps regardless of whether they paid a

merchant in cash, credit card, or magic beans.

Why is this important? Because as a merchant, you don't really care how your customers pay, so

long as they are paying customers.

Below is a fancy "infographic" prepared at much time and expense to highlight the point:

A rewards program run by MasterCard will only benefit one subset of your customers. A rewards

program for Citibank MasterCard will only benefit an even SMALLER subset of your customers. And

at the end of the day, the goal of those programs is not to reward loyalty to your store, it is to

reward loyalty to the card. Citibank and MasterCard want people to use their card, they don't much

care about whether people do that at your store or somewhere else. This is a conflict of interest

between the merchant and payment processor, whereby each side has different goals.

There are other companies out there as well who are working on the smart-phone loyalty program

business, but as part of a payment solution. These include Square and Google Wallet. Again, these

face the same conflicts of interest as any other payment processor loyalty program.

Payment system neutrality is important for Ferret Card. We want people spending money in your

store, and we don't particularly care how they do that.

2. Rewards should come from YOU

All things being equal, which reward is better for a merchant to offer: a $10 voucher for use at your

own store, or $10 worth of products provided by a third-party rewards program operator?

Ferret Card believes that rewards should come directly from the merchant, not from Ferret Card.

There are many benefits to this:

- rewards which come from a merchant help to build loyalty with the customer. A $10

voucher for use at your store means a very good chance the customer is going to come

back again... and most likely spend more than $10!

- if rewards were to come directly from Ferret Card, this is an opportunity lost for the

merchant to build customer loyalty

- additionally, if Ferret Card were to give the rewards, it means that Ferret Card would need

to charge the merchant a fixed price for every stamp issued (so as to cover the redemption

costs). This would be an additional cost to merchants to operate Ferret Card. Merchants

still need to bear the cost of reward redemption now, but this is set by the individual

merchant. Individual merchants have the freedom to choose how much they are willing to

give to reward loyal customers

3. Rewards are for loyal customers

The purpose of a rewards program is to reward LOYALTY. Loyal customers are people who actually

spend money in your store on more than 1 occasion. They are not:

- people who Like you on Facebook

- people who Follow you on Twitter

- people who bought a daily deal (Groupon)

- people who check-in at your venue (FourSquare)

- people who walked in and walked out of your store (Shopkick)

These are examples of other tools you can use to market to customers online and via mobile, but are

not capable of truly determining who is a loyal customer.

Ferret Card rewards only real loyal customers. Stamps are issued by the merchant to paying

customers only. In this way, the merchant is in full control of the rewards program.

4. A rewards program needs to be universal

How many individual store loyalty cards do you carry? How often have you forgotten to bring your

card to a store?

If the store loyalty program was UNIVERSAL, and could be used in many places, the chances of

forgetting your card are reduced. If your store loyalty card is loaded onto your SMARTPHONE, the

chances of forgetting your card are almost non-existent.

A UNIVERSAL store loyalty card is one which is accepted at as many stores as possible. Ferret Card's

goal is to be the world's biggest rewards program, with as close to universal acceptance as possible.

5. A rewards program needs to be unique

In contrast with the above point, a rewards program also needs to be unique for each participating

store. Each participating store needs the freedom to run the rewards program that best suits their

business, allowing the individual store to build true customer loyalty. Whilst this may seem hard to

reconcile with the need to be universal, striking the balance between these two needs is one of

Ferret Card's major strengths as a platform.

Each participating store issues UNIQUE gold and silver stamps on Ferret Card, which cannot be used

at other stores. Ferret Card itself is universal in that is can be accepted at many stores, but the

stamps themselves are unique to each store.

6. Ferret Card needs to be viral

Not viral in the sense that our ferret is carrying the bubonic plague, but viral in the sense that users

will attract more users, ad infinitum. This is the evil genius behind the silver stamp.

By allowing Ferret Card users to share silver stamps with their Facebook friends, they are directing

those friends to also sign up for Ferret Card. If those friends don't sign up for Ferret Card to claim

these silver stamps, they're missing out on FREE STUFF. And being a good friend, you don't want

your friends to miss out on free stuff, do you?

Silver stamps are win-win for customers (more rewards), Ferret Card (more users), and merchants

(more potential customers).

7. The future is social

Actually, so was the past. Your customers have always been talking to each other, and spreading

word of mouth about your business, both positive and negative. The difference now is that we are

all connected 24/7 thanks to the internet and social networks like Facebook.

As a business, you need to leverage on your customer's social connections to help spread the word

about your brand. You want your customers talking about your store, and you want them to share

how great you are with their friends. Of course, sometimes they need a little nudge to get the

conversation going.

Many businesses know that they need to get involved in social media somehow, but most either

don't know how, or don't have the time to invest in it. Participating in Ferret Card is a short-cut to

taking advantage of social media, by letting your customers do the talking.

8. The future is mobile

People are spending more and more time on their smartphones, as their smartphones increasingly

do pretty much everything.

Market research firm eMarketer reports that average daily time spent on mobile devices in US

reached an average of 3 hours per day in 2015. That is well ahead of average time spent on

newspapers or magazines. Businesses need to get their message across on this medium.

The market for advertising dollars on mobile devices is exploding, as advertisers are catching up with

new technology.

As reported by eMarketer, the UK became the first country in the world in 2015 where digital media

advertising (largely fueled by mobile advertising) reached 50% of total advertising spending

(http://www.emarketer.com/Article/UK-Achieve-World-First-Half-of-Media-Ad-Spend-Goes-

Digital/1012280).

Even Facebook, after initially faltering with its mobile strategy, now earns 80% of its advertising

revenue from mobile.

It is becoming more and more essential for businesses to reach out to their customers on mobile.

The challenge has been for small and medium businesses to do this in a cost-effective manner; this is

where Ferret Card steps in!

9. You should know your customers

Who are these funny people coming into your shop, taking your stuff, and giving you money?

Shouldn't you know more about what makes these people tick?

That is exactly the point of Ferret Card CRM. We help you to keep track of the figures and statistics

of your business, so you have a better understanding of your customers. Using this information, you

can then better target your rewards or promotions.

We believe Ferret Card is in an ideal position to be able to generate reliable customer reports, as

Ferret Card is open to all customers (regardless of payment method used). Additionally, reports

generated by Ferret Card are likely to be more accurate due to customer's linking their accounts to

Facebook.

10. You don't need to know everything about your customers

On the other hand, you really don't need to know everything about your customers. Ferret Card

holds customer privacy in high regard, which is why Ferret Card CRM does not provide you

information on any individual customers, only on your customers in aggregate.

Ferret Card also does not offer any way to communicate directly to any individual customer, so it is

not possible for a merchant to build up a mailing list to spam customers via Ferret Card. Nobody

likes spam, and Ferret Card doesn't want to be known as a company which facilitates unwanted e -

mails!