Notes on memberships,
the high street, and the maths behind both.
Opinion, operations, and engineering posts from the PerkClub team. Long enough to say something useful, short enough to read with a coffee.
Featured · Industry
The British high street isn't dying. Its business model is.
Every quarter someone announces the death of the high street. They're misreading the chart. The problem isn't that customers stopped showing up — it's that the business model independents inherited can't survive variance anymore.
Engineering
Why we built PerkClub on Apple Wallet, not a mobile app
Every membership product I'd seen ran through a native app. We chose not to. The decision wasn't ideology — it was the one with the fewest open questions when we drew the user flow on a napkin.
Operations
The economics of a quiet Tuesday
If you ask the owner of an independent coffee shop what they fear most, it's not Pret. It's a wet Tuesday in February that nobody warned them about. Here's why that fear is rational, and what to do about it.
Opinion
Subscription fatigue is real. Memberships at the corner shop aren't the cause.
Every six months a magazine declares we've all hit peak subscription. Then they print it next to an ad for a coffee subscription. The fatigue is real — but it isn't aimed at the bakery on your corner.
Engineering
Building software for shop staff, not founders
Shop software gets sold to founders. It gets used by staff. We've come to think of every kiosk screen as a Saturday-morning test: would the new starter, third shift in, six orders deep, get this right?
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