Know-How Exchange : Strategy

Dear all,

Our fashion brand (target group: 16-25 yrs old women) would like to create a loyalty program in all countries we are located in. Objectives of the loyalty program: to drive sales, repeat customers, track purchase history, enhance customer relationship, personalize their shopping experience.

The loyalty program would include
- POINT CARDS that track customers purchase history. Customers would collect points with each purchase. We would offer them a voucher once they have collected a certain amount of points.
- DATA MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE, that saves customers' information each time they purchase merchandise, which we would use for personalized promotions. Since we have stores in different countries, the software should show the same customers' information in each country.

Questions:
1) Is it common for companies that offer such a loyalty program work with loyalty marketing agencies to set it up for them or is it possible to just buy a software that is linked to the scanable point cards and saves customers information?
2) Can you recommend any good softwares linked to the scanable cards?
3) Can you recomment any agencies that are located in China?
4) How long does it take to implement a loyalty program from producing the cards to setting up the software in each store in different countries?
5) Do you have any more ideas for the loyalty program than free gifts for special seasons, vouchers, invitations to special events and newsletters?

Thanks