Customers Reload and Starbucks Takes Off - Retail News.

The Starbucks card isn't your typical loyalty card. For one thing, the people who use it appear to be genuinely loyal customers of the coffee chain as evidenced by the fact that they keep using it without the promise of any privileged savings.

According to an Associated Press report, almost 100 million Starbucks cards have been activated since first being rolled out in Nov. 2001. Since then, cardholders have reloaded their accounts 38.6 million times. The top line on this: Starbucks has brought in $2.17 billion in revenue.

With the holiday selling season is full swing, Starbucks is looking to surpass its impressive performance from last year. In 2005, the chain activated 15 million cards and, in the process, generated $170 million in revenue. In percentage terms, the card business brought in 12 percent of the entire company's revenue for the fourth quarter.