This was inspired by efforts to slim down my wallet a bit. I have already moved some cards that just have a barcode into the Google Wallet app. That still leaves me with these where I get a stamp every time I buy a coffee or a haircut. I had another for when I buy chicken food. I bet other people have even more to get that little discount.
I was thinking about how those could be digitised. I know 
I have played around with some simple scripts to extra data about Hive accounts as well as the 
Not everyone wants to carry a load of little cards around. I expect the cost of the cards is not massive, but it may be a consideration for the business. Generally the potential for fraudulent use will not be huge as most people are not going to get their own stamp. Mind you, in some places they end up just scrawling a squiggle when they cannot find the stamp. Still, some people will like something they can just have on their phone.
The basic principle is that you give customers a barcode or QR code that can be scanned when they pay for a given item. The transaction is stored on the Hive blockchain and when they have done this enough they get something for free.
The big thing as far as I am concerned is that using this dapp would require a Hive account. The mobile app could be issued an account by the business when first used with the customer being allowed to choose their user name. Then the barcode would just be the account name. The app would be sent the keys initially and the user could be given the option to change them if they decided to use other aspects of Hive, which would be advertised in the app, e.g. 'Fancy a game of Splinterlands' or 'Why not review your coffee?'.
When making a purchase the customer would show their barcode to be scanned by the person on the till with their phone. There would be potential for several accounts to be authorised to do this so the person scanning gets credited with the sale.
The customer would be alerted when they had enough virtual stamps to get a freebie and this would be confirmed with a scan that resets the count.
Each business could set their own conditions.
Although the rate of fraud with actual cards is probably low this is at least as secure as it needs an authorised person to provide the 'stamp'. Linking the scanning app to the till is probably too much complication.
This would be one account for multiple businesses, so there could be cross-business promotions, e.g. get a haircut and a coffee for a free cookie. There could also be time-based promotions such as hitting a target within a month for a bonus. These things are all about encouraging customer loyalty.
Businesses could get into issuing their own tokens on Hive that would open more possibilities.
Unlike some apps out there this would have no private database run by a company who might go bust. As long as we have Hive witnesses this could keep running.
Of course there is lots of potential for analysing the data.
The person scanning could give extra stamps as a favour, but the transactions would be timestamped and so there could be limits on how many can be given in a set time.
With the data being on a public blockchain it would be possible to track where someone has been, but the data could have some encryption to reduce the risk. They might want to hide the location at least.
People may not want yet another mobile app. It could be done as a web app, but that could complicate key management. They only actually need the barcode when they purchase, so that could be held in a digital wallet.
I am not likely to develop this myself, but maybe someone will do it as a personal project. I am assuming it is all possible.
I think it has good potential for onboarding people to Hive and helping make it an 'everything' platform.
