Research into the structural design of online loyalty programmes is conspicuous by its relative novelty. The trend has been to extend traditional offline loyalty programmes into this new environment even though considerable differences exist between the two domains. At the same time web start-up attention has focused on creating awareness and trial, leaving online businesses at both a cost and resource disadvantage when the focus ultimately moves to retention. Thus the temptation to adopt traditional loyalty programmes is an easy response despite its not being an exact fit. The purpose of this exploratory study is to offer some redress to the situation by
focusing on identifying and measuring those loyalty programme factors that are important in the online domain. Specifically, it poses and seeks to find answers to enable the development of a scenario builder and ultimately an online loyalty programme.