[7Figures2Commas]

> “We see things in order of a 20% lift,” says Ho. That means shoppers that would come into a store once a week now typically come in three times a week, he says. “

Is there some sort of new Silicon Valley math I wasn't informed of?

[campo]

I saw this statement and was puzzled at first myself.

That would not be a 20% lift on number of visits by the customer, but it could be a 20% lift on revenue or margin from that customer.

[7Figures2Commas]

In retail, "lift" is usually used in the context of sales. If you can consistently get customers who were visiting your store once a week to come back three times a week, but you only lift sales 20%, something is terribly wrong.

That said, the notion that there's a technology or technique that can sustainably triple repeat store visits on a widespread basis for small and mid-sized services businesses is absurd. If you could do this, you would not be raising $26 million from VCs.

Obviously, it's most likely that the author of this post simply didn't understand what he was writing. Or that I'm not hip to the New Math of the New New Economy.

[conjecTech]

Occam's Razor: They forgot a zero, they meant 200%.

[7Figures2Commas]

As I wrote below, if you had a technology or technique capable of sustainably tripling repeat store visits on a widespread basis and/or lifting sales by 200% without killing margins, you would not be raising $26 million from VCs. You would literally have a license to print money.

Fivestars looks like a modern take on the punch card loyalty program. A 20% sales lift for those customers who opt to participate in a loyalty program (which is usually a small minority of total customers) is quite possible. A 200% sales lift would be unheard of, as would a tripling of repeat store visits.