Resident Club Card Goes Live For Lake Park Residents

NAPLES, Fla. - May 31, 2014 - PRLog -- A discount card that brought several Naples neighborhoods together is expanding throughout Southwest Florida, promoting businesses and offering discounts to residents.

The Resident Club Card is now available to anyone for a $35 online purchase price. Merchants join at no cost other than offering cardholders at least a 10 percent discount and often considerably more, particularly in the off-season from May to October.

The concept for the Resident Club Card began with a card that gave downtown Naples residents priority seating at restaurants.

Amy Saad, president of the homeowners association in the Lake Park neighborhood in Naples, then had an idea to offer a similar card with benefits to Lake Park residents to encourage more participation in the association.

What started as just a few merchants offering discounts to a couple of Naples neighborhoods four years ago now has become a membership card with more than 350 participating merchants, expanding to include businesses and cardholders from Marco Island to Sarasota.

“When residents in the county heard about it, they were annoyed it wasn’t available to all Collier residents. So, a light bulb went off. Of course, why not?” Saad said.

Now, Resident Club Card LLC has expanded to Collier and Lee counties and even beyond, said Saad, who serves as one of three managing directors, along with Nancy Hurst and Gary Bergmoser.

Restaurants are particularly popular among cardholders, but fitness centers, medical centers, dry cleaners, car wash services and all sorts of retailers are benefiting from the club card’s ability to reach out to residents and let them know of the merchants and the discounts available to them.

“We use Facebook, Twitter, email newsletters,” Saad said.

There are often higher discounts announced for limited times and the Resident Club Card goes on sale as well with frequent deals offered on social media.

While the homeowner associations of Lake Park, Coquina Sands and Moorings Park in Naples were part of the reason for the startup of the card in 2010, other factors led to its rapid growth in popularity since, Saad said.

Those include a solution to the challenging economy, a growing desire to support locally owned and operated businesses and a need to find solutions to keep business going in the summer.

Now, there are about 15,000 cardholders and the list is growing rapidly each day with card sales on the website, www.rcccard.com, which lists participating merchants — a list that is growing weekly.

Business owners receive a club card for no cost when they sign up their business as a participating partner.

Tanya Buchanan, general manager of Sea Salt, a restaurant on Third Street South, enjoys the benefits of being a cardholder and a member business, she said.

“It helps a lot, especially with the locals and even moreso in the off season,” Buchanan said.

She foresees the growth to Collier and Lee counties as a benefit to businesses and residents alike. The more people and organizations involved, the more everyone benefits, Buchanan said.

She’s also a frequent card user.“It helps me choose where I’m going to go for certain things. It helped me pick where I go for my own dry cleaners — Jerry’s Cleaners not far from us,” she said.

Lise Sundrla, executive director of the Fifth Avenue South Business Improvement District, said the card is a great benefit to the shopping district of downtown Naples. “The Resident Club Card has been a terrific vehicle to introduce new customers to 5th Avenue South and to welcome back existing customers. In a day where folks have so many options to shop online and at larger shopping malls and convenience centers, having a discount card that highlights local businesses is a great advantage,” Sundrla said.

The effect on businesses is considerable, according to many participants.“Not a day goes by without one or more (card) members coming for breakfast or lunch,” said Ingrid Florez Orgaz, owner of Café Vinoteca on U.S. 41 near Second Avenue South. “Being a fairly new business, I make a point of asking where or how they heard about our cafe. Many of them have learned of us through the (club) Electronic Flier Blast sent to the different neighborhoods.”

Orgaz is also owner of the Contessa Building, where other businesses became Resident Club Card participants, including Perfect 10, a fitness and wellness center.The card grows the sense of community as well, Orgaz said.“We met wonderful and genuinely nice people that started this group. With their hard work and innovation, they have created a very beneficial win-win marketing tool. The growth of it would only benefit more businesses and members,” she said.Hotter summer discounts are soon on their way.

More information: www.rcccard.com

Resident Club Card

PO Box 565

Naples FL 34106

(239) 449-0340