One of the most important objectives for a Shopify store is to increase shopper loyalty. By building loyalty among your shoppers, you can bring in more repeat purchases and grow your sales. A great way to do this is with store credits.
Store credits are rewards set up on a Shopify store for customers. Such a rewards program can help you bring back your shoppers to browse your store and shop from you in return for credits.
But, how effective are they in converting shoppers into customers?
Why You Need to Set Up Store Credits
Have you ever gotten $50 store credits from a brick-and-mortar store? You’re sure to visit the store, even if you have never previously shopped from the store.
Rewards programs have seen massive success, from multi-channel brands like Sephora to eCommerce stores like Pura Vida Bracelets. Shopify’s guide to Loyalty Programs proved just how effective rewards are. With a loyalty program, Evy’s Tree generated 83X ROI and lifted return customers by 58%.
Store credits are a great push for your one-time visitors to subscribe or register on your store and later, shop from you. They provide shoppers with the motivation to engage with your store and come back for repeat purchases.
However, setting up a rewards program doesn’t have to be hard. While it looks complicated, a tiered rewards program is simple to set up, if you have the right app to help you. With Flits, you can build a loyalty experience for your shoppers.
Flits allows you to set up a customer account page, providing shoppers easy access to their store credits. Moreover, the Shopify app lets you set up custom credits, based on your preference. It integrates with your favorite communication apps like Klaviyo so that you can nudge shoppers with the promise of rewards and later, inform them about their total credits.
If you’re not sure what kind of store credits you should set up, we’ve got some ideas for you. Here are 8 types of store credits that are sure to engage your shoppers and bring in more purchases.
8 Types of Credits to Increase Engagement and Sales on Your Shopify Store
1. Registration Credits
Shoppers who sign up ad customers can earn store credits for registering. Providing credits to your shoppers for registering can be a great incentive to convince them to re gister as a shopper.
Since stores see a lot of one-time visitors, this store credit is a great way to convert them into registered shoppers so that you can later send promotional messages to them to convert them into customers.
Pro-tip: Promote your registration credits to visitors who land on your Shopify store. You can either do this within the announcement bar or as a popup.
2. Review Credits
Reviews are a crucial part of building your store’s credibility and assuring shoppers of your products’ quality. Set up review credits to reward shoppers who leave a review on your products. With a reward in place, shoppers will be more eager to leave a review.
Flits integrates with your favorite review apps— Judge.me and Loox. You can set up the integration to simplify your review collection.
Pro-tip: You can send review requests to your past customers via email, SMS, or web push notifications. Use the copy with these marketing messages to promote the store credits that the customer will unlock and entice them to leave a review.
3. Wishlist Credits (coming soon)
Shoppers may be interested in a product on your Shopify store. However, a large number of them end up never wishlisting the product and eventually, forget about it. By setting up rewards for wishlisting, you can increase the number of shoppers who set up their wishlist on your store. You can later target and bring back these shoppers with timely and personalized messages.
Pro-tip: Once they wishlist your products, you can send them a highly personalized message about their wishlisted products. You can remind them about the product and use urgency, alerting them that stocks are low so that they come back to shop the item. You can also send a message to these shoppers when there is a discount running.
4. Subscriber Credits
When a shopper subscribes to your store’s promotions, you have a new opportunity to get them to shop from you. But not every online shopper is willing to share their email address or contact details with every store they visit – no one wants to get spammed, of course!
This is why we have set up store credits for shoppers who subscribe to your newsletters. With these credits, you can give shoppers more reasons to subscribe. But make sure that you also promise to offer them value at the same time; you can’t stop them from unsubscribing if you spam them with too many promotions!
5. Order Credits
Order credits are sent to your shopper once they complete purchasing their order from your Shopify store. These credits are the most impactful and common kind of credits set up within reward programs.
With order credits, you can effectively increase repeat purchases on your store. Credits are a powerful way of boosting loyalty and bringing back shoppers. Once a customer shops from you, they will see the rewards that are provided for placing an order. Next time they are looking to shop products that you sell, they will be more likely to opt to shop from your Shopify store because of the large incentives you provide.
Pro-tip: You can also set up additional store credits to be added to a shopper’s credit account after x number of orders. This helps you identify and provide added rewards to shoppers who buy from you multiple times.
6. Referral credit
If you’re looking to acquire new customers, the best way to do so is with referrals. Shoppers are sure to trust recommendations from friends and family better than promotions and ads. But, you need to provide your customers with enough reason to refer your store. With referral credits set up, you can reward your customers for referring a friend to shop from your store.
Pro-tip: You can also set up different referral credits like additional store credits to the shopper when their referral shops from the store. These tiered rewards will ensure that shoppers recommend your store to others without too many reminders.
7. Reorder credits
Many merchants can’t seem to convert their shoppers on making their second purchase. Rewards have proven effective in converting shoppers and make them loyal shoppers. Set up reorder credits to provide special credits to shoppers when they reorder from the store. Unlike order credits, these credits are provided for repurchasing an item that the shopper previously bought.
Reorder credits are especially helpful for merchants who sell products that need to be refilled like skincare products, health supplements, food items, etc.
Pro-tip: Each shopper’s Customer Account shows their order history and a ‘Reorder’ button under each order. This allows the shopper to easily reorder the item without searching your entire Shopify store for it.
8. Birthday credits
When a typical consumer gets to choose between at least ten stores to make any purchase, you want to make sure they pick you every time. That happens only when you make them feel special – and a good shopping experience isn’t enough; you have to join them in celebrations that matter the most to them!
Birthday credits are a great way to let your shoppers know that you care about them and want to celebrate their birthday. Very few stores set up rewards and messages for shoppers during their birthdays. With these credits, you can stand out among your competitors. Shoppers are more likely to remember your store when you give them a positive experience!
Best Practices for Sending Store Credit Messages to Increase Shopify Sales
Just setting up store credits isn’t enough. You need to promote your rewards program and remind shoppers about their credits. Within Flits, you can set up these messages and reminders to effortlessly bring back shoppers to earn more credits and spend their credits before they expire.
Here are 5 best practices to help you set up store credit messages and ensure you are engaging your shoppers.
1. Use the right messaging and tone in your copy
Ensure that your messages about store credits are consistent in tone across different platforms. You can use excitement in your tone when nudging shoppers to do an activity to earn credits. Clearly state the benefits of earning these rewards so that shoppers are more likely to jump on your offers.
Test out different kinds of copy to see how shoppers respond to your messages and refine it to maximize clicks.
2. Set up credit expiration reminders
A timely reminder about credit expiration can help you bring back the shopper to do some quick shopper and use up their expiring credits. Set up credit expiration reminders to automatically let shoppers know when their credits are about to expire.
One tactic you can use within the copy is urgency. With phrases like ‘Act now’ and ‘Only for 24 hours’, your shoppers will rush to make use of their rewards.
3. Use emojis in your message
Make your messages more interactive by using emojis. Emojis are shown to increase click-throughs. Emojis in email subject lines increase open rates by 56% and even push notifications with emojis are opened 85% more than those without.
When using emojis, ensure that they are in the context of the message. Emojis like the dollar sign or money bag are great additions to your store credit messages.
4. Set both email and web push notifications to reach your audiences
Some of your shoppers may prefer email, while others prefer web push notifications. Cater to both kinds of shoppers by setting up both channels when communicating with them about their store credits.
By diversifying your channels, you can reach a wider audience. Don’t forget to optimize your message to each channel accordingly. With email, you can add more details to your message while with web push, you need to keep your copy short and informative.
5. Set up credit messages for different actions
When setting up store credits, your aim shouldn’t just be to get signups. You also need to engage your shoppers with different kinds of activities. Set up messages to get more reviews, remind them to reorder, remind them about their remaining credit balance, etc.
With different kinds of messages, your shopper will be constantly engaged and will keep coming back to your Shopify store.
Ready to boost sales with store credits?
Store credits are a powerful way to engage your shoppers, build loyalty, and generate more sales. Set up store credits and test out its impact on your store’s growth with Flits now!
Our 30-day free trial can help you understand how this rewards program works and how you can use it for your Shopify store. Reach out to us to get started!
