Small business. Big heart. Giant loyalty program... $10,000 and counting.

Last month marked our two year anniversary as "new" owners of Mountain Top Toys. But this month marked a truly major milestone for us. 

We offer our customers a no-gimmick loyalty program. It's unique in that your reward "credits" are stored for you in an iPad in our store. No annoying punch cards, no "programs" that require common core math to figure out your savings or a gazillion visits before you can redeem. In short, if you can remember your phone number, you're all set.

It's also unique in the amount we give back. You earn one credit for every dollar you spend. Reach 100 credits, and the next time you shop with us you get $10 off your purchase. It's like getting 10% off all your purchases, all the time. We just reward you at each $100 increment. (Compare to Toys R Us - $5 back for every $125 spent. Which about covers the cost of gas to get there.)  

We launched the program in October 2013, and it hasn't stopped growing. On Saturday, April 5th, we eclipsed $10,000 in total rewards awarded to date. 

That's $10,000 put back into our local economy. $7,960 of that in the past year alone.  $270 in the week leading up to Eatser. (Put another way, 27 customers heard trumpets blare triumphantly from our iPad over six business days.) 

We're rather proud of that. We not only have one of the best mix of toys and gifts in southeast Tennessee, we have what we believe to be the most generous loyalty program, as well. 

Of course, in order for us to afford such a program, what we lose in loyalty rewards we must gain in increased sales. But we don't want those increased sales to come from our loyal customers. (Well, if they really want to buy more, we won't stop them.) No, what we want is to see more Signal Mountain residents shop our store. 

• We want more parents to understand the benefits and convenience of birthday bins. 
  
  
• We want more mountain residents who choose to shop for toys off the mountain - or online - to know that we give back to area schools, Erlanger Children's Hospital, and the countless spring silent auctions for local church groups and other organizations. (Over $450 in merchandise to silent auctions in March alone. Quality merchandise, not clearance.)  And since taking over the store in March 2013, we've lowered prices across the store.

• And, of course, we want more Signal Mountain residents to know about our loyalty program. So far in April, we've awarded $500 in customer rewards in only 18 days of business. That's 50 customers who hit the $100 mark already. (When we took the store over, we'd have been excited to have had 50 people just walk in our store in three weeks.)

Look, we can't always compete with unregulated online prices, but our reward program gets us a good bit closer. 

Plus, we have those trumpet sounds.

Thank you to all those who have supported us in the past, and here's to the next $10,000. We're already off to a great start. 

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