An app in your name
Four steps before the first stamp
- Open the App Store or Google Play
- Download the app
- Create an account and a password
- Confirm their email address
Guide
Apple Wallet and Google Wallet: why your independent business should get on board
A train ticket, a concert seat, a boarding pass, a contactless payment: your customers already pull out their phones for all of this. On iPhone, that’s Apple Wallet; on Android, Google Wallet.
Yet when it comes to loyalty, many independent business owners still think they have to choose between two extremes: the cardboard card that ends up forgotten at the bottom of a bag, and the app in their own name, which costs thousands of euros and which almost nobody installs.
I’m a developer, and my job is to remove unnecessary steps. Here, there is one step too many. The best app for your shop already exists on your customers’ phones.
What it is, what it changes at the counter and what it doesn’t do: the five-minute tour.
What is a mobile “Wallet” (and why it isn’t an app)?
First confusion to clear up: Wallet is not an app in your name that customers would have to look for in a store. It is the phone’s card holder, designed and kept up to date by Apple or Google. On iPhone, it ships with the device. On Android, it is Google Wallet: already installed on some models, and a free download on the others.
Think of it as a drawer in the phone: the bank card is already in it, and so is the transit ticket. Your loyalty card slips in next to them.
A card in Wallet
Three steps, about a minute
- Scan the QR code on the counter
- Fill in a short form
- Tap “Add”
That’s it: the card is in the phone.
Technically, your card becomes a “pass”: a small signed file with your colors, your logo, the customer’s balance and their QR code. It weighs a few hundred kilobytes, while a big retailer’s app often exceeds 100 MB.
Customers have no account to create and no password to remember. They fill in a short form (first name, last name, email, date of birth) once, and the card stays in their phone.
The custom app trap
Many owners dream of having “their own icon on the customer’s home screen.” In a shop, a coffee shop or a salon, the math falls apart quickly. Let’s look at what happens to 100 customers who walk through your door.
The checkout wall. Ask a customer in a hurry, with three people behind them, to open the App Store, download an app and create a password. Their answer fits in one sentence: “No time today, thanks.” Let’s be generous and assume that 15 customers out of 100 see it through.
The following month. According to AppsFlyer benchmarks, thirty days after installation, a shopping app is reopened by only 3 to 6% of its users, depending on the quarter.
Do the math: out of 100 customers, fewer than one remains. And that is for an app whose median budget reaches €30,000, according to the 2026 barometer from La Fabrique du Net (a French web-agency directory), not counting the updates needed with every new version of iOS and Android.
A card in Wallet doesn’t guarantee that a customer will come back. It removes the two steps where you lose the most people: the download and the account creation.
The 4 advantages of Wallet for a local shop
Putting your card in Apple Wallet and Google Wallet is about more than replacing a piece of cardboard. Four things change, very concretely.
Sign-up in one minute
All plans
The customer opens the camera, aims at the QR code on your counter, fills in the form and taps “Add.” They sign up on their own, on their phone, and the line keeps moving.
Messages on the lock screen
Pro and Business plans
A private sale to announce, a Thursday afternoon to fill? Your message appears on the lock screen of customers who agreed to receive your offers, with no cost per send and no SMS plan.
A card that updates itself
All plans
On cardboard, everything is frozen the day it’s printed. Here, the balance changes at every checkout. Changing your logo or colors? Cards already issued follow: right away on the Pro and Business plans, at the customer’s next visit on the Free plan.
A card that doesn’t get lost
All plans
It doesn’t sit in a pocket or at the bottom of a bag: it stays in the phone, and its QR code displays even without a network. If the customer switches devices, they don’t start from zero: their balance is saved on their profile, not in the phone.
Dedicated app or Apple and Google Wallet: the comparison
Download
One app per brand, on the App Store or Google Play
No brand app: the card goes into the phone’s Wallet
Customer sign-up
Account, password, email to confirm
QR code and a short form: about a minute
Space on the phone
Often more than 100 MB
A few hundred KB
Notifications
Subject to permission, refused nearly one time in two
On the lock screen of customers who accept your offers (Pro and Business plans)
Upfront cost
€30,000 median budget
Free up to 50 customers, then €29.90 a month, tax included
Maintenance
Your responsibility, with every new version of iOS and Android
Wallet is kept up to date by Apple and Google, the card by Cartia
App notifications: permission granted by 49% of iPhone users and 60% of Android users (2024 medians). Median budget: 2026 barometer from La Fabrique du Net, a French web-agency directory. App sizes: recorded on the French App Store on October 1, 2026.
Security and GDPR: why this technology reassures your customers
Your customers are wary, and rightly so, of forms that ask for a postal address and buying habits in exchange for ten stamps. A card in Wallet asks for little, and says what it does.
- No banking data
- A loyalty card is not a means of payment: it asks for no bank card and no bank account details.
- A signed card
- Every pass is signed by its issuer. The iPhone checks that signature before displaying it: a tampered pass is rejected.
- Offers by choice
- At sign-up, the offers checkbox is unchecked. Without it, the customer keeps their card and their points, and receives no promotional messages.
- A customer file hosted in Germany
- With Cartia, the customer file stays yours: we are only your data processor, and we sell no data.
By type of business
The same steps, whatever your business
Scan, fill in, add: the journey is the same from one business to the next. The program setup, on the other hand, depends on the type of business:
- Bakery loyalty cardAt rush hour, nobody installs an app: the QR code on the counter is enough.
- Coffee shop loyalty cardThe phone is already out to pay: the card is presented in the same motion.
- Hair salon loyalty cardFive to eight weeks between appointments: a cardboard card gets lost, the card in the phone stays.
- Food truck loyalty cardThe customer keeps their card without a network. So does your scan, on the Pro and Business plans: stamps are sent when the network returns.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Do all smartphones support Apple Wallet and Google Wallet loyalty cards?
Almost all of them. On iPhone, the Wallet app has come with the phone since 2012. On Android, Google Wallet requires Android 9 or later, which covers 99% of the Android devices in use in France according to StatCounter (September 2026): it is already installed on some models and is a free download on the others. The notable exception: recent Huawei phones, which no longer have Google services. Their owners can still sign up, and you find them by name at the counter.
Do I have to pay Apple or Google for each card issued?
No. Neither Apple nor Google charges a per-card fee for loyalty cards. Apple requires the issuer of the cards to join its developer program ($99 a year): Cartia carries that membership, not you. You only pay your Cartia subscription, which is free up to 50 customers.
What happens if a customer changes phones?
Their loyalty cards follow their account: iCloud on iPhone, their Google account on Android. If theirs is missing after the transfer, you give them a reinstall link from their customer profile. Either way, they don’t start from zero: their balance is saved with Cartia, not in the phone.
Does the card work without a network connection when it’s scanned?
On the customer’s side, yes: the card is stored in the phone, and its QR code displays even in a basement or a dead zone. On the counter side, the device that scans must be connected to record the visit. The balance shown on the card then updates as soon as the customer’s phone finds a network again.
Cartia
How Cartia makes this technology simple for your business
Issuing cards for Apple and Google yourself takes real plumbing: signing certificates, an update server, the .pkpass format for iPhone, the Google Wallet API for Android.
That is the part we built, so you never have to touch it:
- Not a line of code: you design your card in your brand’s colors from the dashboard.
- Both versions at once: the card comes out for Apple Wallet and for Google Wallet, with a single sign-up QR code.
- A counter with no equipment: you log visits from the browser of your phone, a tablet or a computer.
Create my loyalty card with Cartia
Ready in 5 minutes · Free up to 50 customers · No credit card