How to design a rewards catalogue for a digital loyalty platform

Most loyalty platforms make the same mistake. They invest everything in the earning mechanics and treat the rewards catalogue as an afterthought. Members spend weeks collecting points, finally click through to redeem, and find a wall of generic gift cards and minor discounts. The feeling evaporates.

At Livewall, we design and build loyalty platforms for consumer brands across retail, FMCG, and entertainment. We have seen how well a catalogue can work, and how quickly a poor one can undermine an otherwise strong programme. Here is what we have learned.

Start with the promise, not the inventory

The rewards catalogue is not a list of what you can give away. It is the visual promise of the entire programme. When someone considers signing up, the catalogue is the first thing they check to judge whether participation is worth their time.

That promise has to match the brand. A sports brand that only offers store vouchers communicates that member loyalty is not worth much. A brand that offers exclusive experiences, early product access, and personalised items communicates something entirely different.

Ask first: what does our audience actually want? Then: what can we offer that they cannot get elsewhere?

Categorise by motivation, not product type

The most common catalogue design mistake is organising by product category: electronics, gift cards, experiences. That is logical from an operational standpoint, but it does not reflect how people make decisions.

Better categorisation works from motivation:

• For me — personal rewards, small luxuries, status items
• For home — practical value, family-focused options
• Experiences — tickets, exclusive access, memorable moments
• Brand-exclusive — things you cannot get anywhere else

That last category is the most powerful. If your catalogue only contains things people could simply buy, the sense of exclusivity disappears. Exclusive merchandise, early access to new collections, a behind-the-scenes moment with the brand: these are the rewards people actually save towards.

Make the cost of rewards visually clear

A common UX failure: showing rewards without the context of what they cost relative to what a typical member earns. Someone who just earned 200 points and sees a catalogue where everything costs 5,000 points will disengage immediately. Not because the rewards are unappealing, but because the gap feels impossible.

Good catalogue UX always shows:

• What the user currently has
• How close they are to their next achievable reward
• A 'nearly there' signal for the reward just out of reach

That 'nearly there' mechanic is psychologically powerful. It keeps members in the programme who would otherwise drop off. We applied this in the HEMA Stapelgek activation, where members came back daily for incremental steps towards their goal.

Position rewards at the right levels

A well-designed catalogue has a clear ladder structure:

Low threshold — rewards achievable quickly. Small discounts, a free sample, a digital extra. These deliver the first redemption experience and build trust that the programme delivers.

Mid-level — rewards that require a few weeks of earning. This is the backbone of your catalogue. The average member spends the most attention here.

Aspirational rewards — things that are genuinely special. A VIP experience, a limited product variant, an exclusive event. Few people need to actually reach these. Their function is to motivate everyone who sees them.

If you only have mid-level rewards, the programme loses ambition. If you only show aspirational rewards, it feels unreachable.

Keep the catalogue fresh

A static catalogue is a dead catalogue. If members see exactly the same rewards after three months as they did when they joined, the sense of discovery disappears. They know what is there. The reason to look again is gone.

Build in rotation from day one. Seasonal rewards, time-limited exclusives, limited editions. Always give members a reason to open the catalogue again.

The Decathlon always-on loyalty programme runs on a combination of stable core rewards and rotating movement-based extras tied to the season and current sporting moments. That keeps the programme relevant long after launch.

Connect rewards to behaviour, not just spending

The richest loyalty platforms reward more than transactions. Reviews, community contributions, challenges, referrals: behaviour-based rewards increase engagement outside the purchase moment and deliver more valuable customer data.

But watch the catalogue integration. If behavioural rewards only unlock small discounts while purchase points unlock the interesting rewards, the catalogue inadvertently communicates that behaviour is worth less. Make sure your best rewards are reachable via the behaviour route too.

This principle sits at the heart of how we approach loyalty programme design: first the behaviour structure, then the reward architecture, then the catalogue.

Design the redemption experience as a highlight

The redemption moment is the emotional peak of any loyalty platform. It is the moment where the abstract value of points becomes concrete. Yet most platforms treat it as an admin task: click, confirm, done.

That is a missed opportunity. The redemption flow deserves the same attention as a product launch. Visual confirmation. A moment of surprise or congratulation. Clear communication about what happens next and when the reward will arrive.

The UX of a loyalty platform is not just about the catalogue page itself. It is about the full emotional arc from 'I am going to redeem' to 'I have received my reward'.

Personalise the catalogue based on behaviour

As a loyalty platform matures, you know more about your members. Use that in the catalogue. A member who consistently buys sportswear does not need restaurant vouchers as the first option. A member who writes a lot of reviews may value community exclusives more than product discounts.

Personalisation in the catalogue increases offer relevance and reduces the cognitive load of choosing. The feeling that 'this catalogue is for me' is one of the strongest retention signals we know.

For McDonald's Spain MyMcDonald's World, we built a gamified 3D loyalty world where rewards and challenges were connected to individual user behaviour in the app. The result was a programme that felt personal rather than generic.