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Written by: Mrudul
How to Set Up a Loyalty Program for Your Shopify Store in 2024
Having a loyalty program for your Shopify store brings several benefits. In this article, you will learn how to set up a loyalty program.
Shopify stores are always looking to grab customers’ attention, and more importantly, their loyalty. Loyalty isn’t something that can be bought. Thankfully, there are ways to increase the chances of a customer being loyal to your brand. 79% of customers have said that loyalty programs impact the chances of them doing business with a brand. The reason why most customers are happy to be a part of a loyalty program is because it offers a number of perks and incentives that make it worth their time.
Let’s look at some of the reasons for Shopify e-commerce success stories.
Increased Sales:
80% of customers who are part of a loyalty program opine that they are more likely to purchase from a brand after being a part of its loyalty program.
More Referrals:
Customers who get incentives to refer your brand to their friends or family will be more than happy to do so, if it comes with an incentive. Those who love being your customers will naturally recommend your products or services. If it comes with incentives, it increases the chances of more referrals.
Rewards Loyal Customers:
Instead of ignoring customers who have been a part of your store for long, loyalty programs keep them engaged and rewards them. The incentives and perks show that you care about them.
Helps You Create an Emailing List:
People who sign up for your program are added to your email list. You get an opportunity to nurture them, and this makes it easy for you to share about upcoming products, different sales promotions, and other updates.
Improves Your Brand’s Reputation:
A brand that showers its customers with rewards will be well-loved by customers. When you offer great value, the perception that people have about your brand will have an impact too. It will create a positive connection in their minds about your Shopify store.
Collect Metrics:
Loyalty programs makes it easier for you to track your customers’ spending habits, purchasing triggers, and so on. Shopify loyalty programs insights case study helps you gather deeper understanding and can be used as a benchmark for future promotional activities.
Just like any other marketing campaign, your loyalty program must have clear objectives. Otherwise, you will only be shooting in the dark. You can have a variety of goals for the program. It could be to grow your customer base, increase loyalty, create goodwill for the brand, reduce marketing costs, increase customer lifetime value, or increase engagement. Whatever it is, be careful that you don’t have too many objectives as it can derail your efforts. Your Shopify loyalty program success has a huge bearing on this.
There are a variety of loyalty programs that you can choose from. Let’s look at some of the options at your disposal.
A. Tiered Loyalty Programs: Here, the customers progress through several levels of tiers, either based on their spending value or the fee associated with becoming a member.
B. Spend-Based Program: Customers get loyalty points based on the amount of money they have spent with your brand. If the loyalty perks are attractive, this can also increase the average order value and even reduce customer churn.
C. VIP Membership Program: In this type of program, customers must pay to be a part of the loyalty program. It gives them exclusive access to certain perks. It could be in the form of discounts, early product access, additional services, etc.
D. Value-Based Program: The perks for customers in this type of loyalty program will not be a reward for them. It could be in the form of a charity which the Shopify store will donate on their behalf. Customers who are not attracted to discounts, but care about the environment or climate change, might want to associate with businesses that share the same values.
E. Points Program: This is the most used loyalty program. Here, customers get points based on the value of their purchase. The points can be redeemed based on how much has accumulated.
F. Gamified Program: Easily one of the most popular types of loyalty programs, here, your loyalty program acts like a gamified version. It helps in encouraging repeat purchases, engages customers, increases loyalty, and creates a great image.
One of the most important parts of having a number of loyalty program ROI case study is to choose the right rewards. For this, you must know deeply about your customers. Without the right rewards, you will end up turning away your customers.
Imagine this scenario: You offer a product that is on the expensive side. Do you think a $5 discount will be considered an appropriate reward? Of course not.
Let’s look at some of the types of rewards that can be offered:
You must choose a loyalty program software that makes it incredibly easy to get started. The tool must have an interface more like a drag-and-drop one so that there is little technical knowledge required. From sending referral invitatioans to tracking conversions or sending rewards, everything should be handled automatically.
The software must have a reporting dashboard that allows you to track each aspect of the loyalty program. This helps increase the effectiveness of the loyalty program since you will be able to figure out what works and what doesn’t. For those who are seriously considering a loyalty program, check out 99minds.
The next step after the all-important selection of the loyalty program software is to send invitations to prospective members. Your most important asset in this promotion are your loyal customers who have been supporting you for a considerable amount of time. Make sure that you don’t ignore other customers too. Find ways to make your loyalty program membership attract even for newer clients. The membership invitations can be sent even for transaction emails, as long as you make the offer appealing.
Flipkart is an Indian company acquired by Walmart, making it the largest online retailer in the country. The company has its own product line called DigiFlip, featuring laptop bags, tablets, and USB flash drives. Of course, they also sell a wide range of products online, which translates to about $5 billion in revenue in 2021.
In 2018, Flipkart officially launched its own loyalty system, Flipkart Plus. It’s a no-subscription fee and points-based program for regular customers, who earn points with every purchase. They can get four SuperCoins for every 100 Indian Rupees ($1.32) spent at the Flipkart store. To join the Plus Membership program, customers need to purchase goods in the last 12 months and earn 200 SuperCoins.
Then, members of the Flipkart Plus loyalty program can enjoy:
Also, Flipkart Plus members can earn double SuperCoin, enjoy unique Flipkart Pay Later options, and benefit from ecosystem partners in travel, lifestyle, health, and fitness. Each purchase is limited to 100 coins and has a one-year expiration date.
This loyalty system has been a huge success and achieved over 100% year-on-year growth. Around 30% of Flipkart’s monthly active customers are now Plus members. On top of that, members, on average, transact 5X more and have 7X higher spending than the rest of the shoppers. Currently, Flipkart issues more than 1 billion SuperCoins per month, allowing customers to enjoy various benefits. That sounds like a successful customer loyalty program, doesn’t it?
Walmart is an American multinational retail corporation that runs a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States. I think this brand needs no introduction. It’s a world-renowned company that many businesses look up to, with revenues of $572.8 billion in 2022. Let’s take a closer look at this eCommerce rewards system success story, though.
In 2020, Walmart launched Walmart+, a membership program that brings in-store and online benefits to save time and money. The company provides their customers with pay&go mobile applications extended with lots of promotions and special offers. Members need to pay a subscription fee of $12.95/month or $98/year to receive benefits, such as:
Providing a subscription-based system. Members pay the same subscription fee every time and always enjoy an amazing set of shopping and lifestyle benefits.
Giving a free 30-day trial period. Walmart’s customers can become members of the loyalty system for 30 days to see if the program suits them. They can also cancel at any time without any hassle.
SHEIN is an international B2C fast fashion eCommerce platform founded in 2008. They focus mainly on women’s clothing, menswear, children’s clothing, shoes, bags, and other fashion merchandise. According to Bloomberg, the brand was valued at $100 billion in April 2022. You probably know it for its affordable garments, but now it’s time to find out about another element that retains customers — SHEIN Bonus Points, which are like a magnet and attract further purchases.
SHEIN Bonus Points program addressed the point earning system in a smart way, and their customers can collect them through:
You can quickly achieve Shopify store success with loyalty programs if you follow the right customer loyalty best practices case study examples. After reading this article, we are confident that you will be able to replicate Shopify merchant loyalty success.
For Shopify stores that are looking to increase customer testimonials on Shopify loyalty programs, 99minds is here to help you. Get in touch with us and we will show you to leverage loyalty programs to create a number of customer retention strategies case study.