• by Craig Elimeliah , March 3, 2025

Commerce has always been about a value exchange: goods for money and services for time. But today, loyalty is the currency brands are desperate to control, yet it’s slipping through their fingers. Why? Because the old ways of earning and keeping it have become obsolete.

Loyalty is no longer about points, punch cards or platitudes. Proof positive is the mass exodus from frequent flier programs. Per the Wall Street Journal, more travelers than ever, especially younger consumers, are abandoning these loyalty schemes.

In its current incarnation, loyalty entails presence, relevance and trust in a world where consumers run the show. They’re building their ecosystems, composing their own experiences, and demanding that brands meet them on their terms. If loyalty is a two-way street, most brands drive the wrong way.

Pay attention. Attention isn’t just scarce. It’s fractured. The days of consumers passively engaging with centralized storefronts or brand-owned platforms are long gone.

Commerce now happens everywhere: in a comment section, during a livestream and through an AI agent. Your product might pop up on someone’s radar in a TikTok haul, a Discord recommendation or embedded in an augmented reality layer as pedestrians stroll past your store.

Brands must move from controlling the narrative to embedding themselves in the story. Loyalty isn’t earned through transactional breadcrumbs. It’s built by being unmissable, essential and human at every point of interaction.

According to McKinsey Research, 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions, and 76% feel frustrated when those expectations aren't met. 

Forget the CRM systems of old. Consumers don’t care about your push notifications or personalized emails. Their loyalty lies with what serves them best in the moment. This is a radical shift: Loyalty isn’t about the brand; it’s about the consumer.

The brands that understand this and can respond in real time will win. Starbucks uses its app not just for customer orders, but as a loyalty engine that blends convenience with personalization, like suggesting drinks based on past orders and time of day. Glossier turned its most loyal fans into brand evangelists, using community-driven content to build trust and authenticity -- so much so that many consumers bought Glossier’s perfume without even smelling it, largely because of TikTok. 

The future of loyalty is distributed and ephemeral. It’s about being present wherever decisions happen: on social feeds, in search, through AI agents or within physical spaces transformed by augmented reality and the Internet of Things. A consumer’s loyalty might last seconds, but those seconds can be enough to drive a lifetime of value.

Think of your business as a co-creator in someone else’s story. AI is your collaborator, not your crutch. Influencers are your storefronts, not your competitors. Commerce is the medium, not the message.

The future of commerce is loyalty without borders, where consumers move fluidly across platforms, guided by relevance, trust and utility. It’s a world where every interaction is an opportunity to deepen the connection, and every touchpoint is a chance to build trust.

Don’t abandon loyalty. Redefine it. Because loyalty isn’t dead; it’s evolving. The question is: Are you?