Put a big bright signup button in the main content area. I assumed "Suitable For All Consumer Facing Businesses!" was going to be one.

LoyaltySpace is a complete, simple, and affordable solution that helps small businesses to increase sales by running their own customer loyalty program.

LoyaltySpace supports both plastic card loyalty programs and an innovative mobile phone based loyalty product.

That is a lot about you and a little about them. Successful sales is frequently a lot about them and a little about you. Relatedly, features do not sell software; benefits sell software. Don't tell them that you can "build a customer database" ("I sell freaking pasta, what do I want a database for!? 'Subsequent marketing activity'?!"), tell them the improvement they are going to experience in their lives from using your product. ("You'll get eager customers who want to hear from you giving you their contact details so that you can sell them more stuff.")

Similarly, "Create tailored offers" => "Increase sales by directing the right offers to the right customers."

Looking at the pricing, my first thought is "Wow, that's cheap!" I don't know how that converts to US dollars, but it seems way low. I think you'll want to raise your monthly fee considerably, on the order of 2-3x that amount. Or, consider offering multi-tiered pricing (more on that below).

I run a startup (http://doleaf.com) that also deals with small businesses, and they require A LOT of handholding. Plus, they'll always want to talk with you and tell you how to do things (which is both good and bad). All that time should count in your head as work time (believe me, it's way tougher than writing code) and you need to price things as such.

I suggest you definitely consider multi-tiered pricing based on the number of members in the loyalty program. Ironically, I think your bigger clients will probably need less handholding, but they can help subsidize the time you spend working with the smaller ones.

Overall, I think this is an excellent idea. Are you considering accepting customers in the USA? This might be a good fit for some of the nurseries I work with, and I'd be happy to pass it along to them.

Having tried something similar to this in the past, I found that the business was much more sales than technology. Small businesses are very cost-conscious, and slow to adopt new technology.

It required a lot of sales up-front to land a deal, and then the willingness to pay was ridiculously low. My end realization was that, given the effort required to land a customer and the number of customers it would take to reach break-even profitability, it was basically impossible to make money on the idea.

Your idea is slightly different, so the numbers may work out for you, but I would think about how many customers you need at $27 a pop (in USD). Basically, you are going to need a cheap distribution channel that can sell thousands of subscriptions to even come close.

As a consumer, the last thing I want is more plastic in my wallet. Something like Cardstar (http://www.mycardstar.com/) would be a start, but maybe that's a typical early adopter HN attitude more than a typical consumer response.

Your landing page needs simpler, bigger, attention-grabbing text.

Also, I'll second the comment below about the big bright signup button. The CardStar link above has a nice example that you might draw inspiration from.

EDIT: Just watched a video from a link on HN:

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/05/draw-your-ideas.html

And the website behind Jack Dorsey's new idea:

https://squareup.com/

He makes the point in the video that 90% of America uses plastic to pay for stuff, but only 2% of America can accept payments from plastic sources.

If you can come up with a killer common-sense line like that (and a killer landing page like Square's), that will become the raison d'etre for your concept.

I'm going to put my startup to the masses on HN and would appreciate any comments, feedback, and ideas!

I have built a system to manage customer loyalty programmes for small businesses.

By implementing my software, they'll be able to:

Improve sales by directly rewarding recurring purchases.

Be slightly more data driven in their approach and marketing - sending tailored offers and marketing.

Use the mobile channel - SMS and Mobile Web to push out offers and build a relationship with their customers.

There is a definite gap in the market for this. I have spoken with tens of potential customers who have looked for a similar system, but have been put off by the high setup costs and tie ins. These are businesses such as restaurants, salons etc, who want to try loyalty marketing but want to be sure of it's use before making any big commitment.

Anyway, would appreciate any comments about the idea, website, sofware etc.

[NOTE: There are still a few rough edges in the software to be cleaned up over the next day or so. My existing handful of customers out of my beta testing and development are on a seperate instances running older software.]

Thanks for posting this for review. Like the concept a lot.

If you have some beta customers, I would recommend you post quotes from them on the site. Nothing will help win over small business owners better than their fellow business owners. If they are willing to share any specific numbers with the outside world, that would help even more. For example, "loyaltyspace has increased my customer frequency rate by 10%". Other people validating your product makes sales SO MUCH easier.

One thing I was hoping to see under the "how it works" section was a qualitative/emotive story that would demonstrate the ROI to the business. This should help sell the product by showing a use case that the business owner would understand and quickly be able to attach numbers to and CLEARLY see how loyalty will make them money.

Each business owner will have different numbers, but each uses the same levers to get those numbers. Identify those key levers and continually emphasize how you help them maximize those levers. For example, key levers could be customer acquisition, customer retention, avg. order size, avg. order margin, etc

Yes, you do need to explain the technical piece as well but my guess is the owner first needs to be convinced that they "need" the product before they dive into the more technical "How do I set this up?"

My immediate feedback would be the following: You seem to be trying to sell the idea of customer loyalty instead of what your product do in the field of customer loyalty. (The 5 promotional points on the front page)

Now that is a perfectly valid approach, but I don't think you want to do that.

Instead assume that your customers already know what CL is and instead focus on what your product does that others don't. I.e. what set you apart in the CL field, not just what is great about CL.

My feedback is all design related, but I like your idea.

Homepage Slideshow:

- The screenshots are hard to read. The perspective looks nice, but I'd prefer a straight on shot.

- Font used in captions is hard to read.

- Once a user interacts with the controls turn off the automatic transitions.

Subpages:

- Why is there a large empty space on the left? I would move the photos to the left side, and make the text column about 560px wide.

Misc:

- As Patrick pointed out, there's nothing to click on the homepage! Make a big, obvious call-to-action button.

- "Questions" is an odd thing to call the contact widget on the left side. I expected it to be an FAQ or some kind of help system. Perhaps labeling it "Contact Us", "Get In Touch", or "Inquiries" would be better.

Hey loyaltspace, I am doing a podcast about various ideas/projects/stuff that HN members are working on.

Interested in being on one of the episodes?

I put up the first episode and am pivoting based on the feedback I got from the HN community: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1379942

If you are interested, email me: marc {at} ideatin {dot} com

If anyone else, that is building something/has an idea/or has built something is also interested, feel free to reach out to me also.

I think that for the lazy viewer of the page it's not clear what your business actually does.

You use a lot of buzzwords and goal orientations but one has to dig around a bit to see what the actual product is.

     Attract repeat visitors to your companies website, 

Change companies to company's

Design is nice, but the logo looks cheap. And pixel-y.

I love the idea and think you are on the right track with easy setup and SMS integration. Try and look at it more from the customer's point of view; they are basically signing up to be spammed, correct? A small business may want all those features you listed (remember that features don't sell, benefits do), but they aren't going to buy if you don't show how customers will also benefit and opt-in in droves. SMS is simple for a lot of people to use, but it might be helpful to explain how people actually opt-in.

The website is too word heavy; try asking a few friends to read a paragraph you have written, then summarize it back to you. Usually you'll get a more concise answer that could be used instead.

Like everybody else, I recommend you re-evaluate your pricing. The mailchimp example somebody mentioned is perfect. The paragraph you have between Indicative Pricing and Pricing is completely unnecessary.

The How It Works page also needs to be pared down. The goal should be to get small businesses to sign up, then have it be so simple to use that the operation acts as a guide. I would change Sign Up to be a link, then have Register Customers (signs up telling them to use mobile phones, register on the site, NO manual input from the business owner), Tailor Marketing Offers, Reap the Benefits. Or something similar, it just needs to be simplified, a lot!

Again, I love the concept and hope you have the drive to see it through!

More background on the idea and my own philosophy here....

http://www.loyaltyspace.com/faq.html

Thanks - Ben