If you are a store owner or an online seller, then you need to know that earning and spending on store credit on Shopify can double your profits.
In fact, store credits are much better than discounts. This is because it ensures people come to buy from you. Furthermore, you are not continually competing with others in the market who will always have something bigger to offer.
Nevertheless, simply handing out store credits will get you nowhere.
For them to work, you need to encourage customers to earn and spend them proactively. This article takes a look into that.
Store credits strategy for maximum customer engagement
Ways to help customers earn more credits that add value to your business too
For leaving product reviews
If you’re already collecting reviews on your products, why not give customers credit for writing them? This could act as a great incentive especially when they leave their first review.
In the long run, this practice will help encourage customers to write more reviews, which is good for you because it gives you more data about your products and how well they’re selling.
For uploading social posts and tagging you
You can ask your customers to create their own content about your brand, products, and services using social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. As soon as they upload their posts, link these posts with your business page on social media platforms using hashtags like #yourbrandname or #yourproductname. This will help you increase engagement with your target audience and increase brand awareness among potential buyers.
In return, offer them store credits. You can also ask them to tag your page in their posts so that more people get exposed to your brand name through the organic reach of these photos in their followers’ feeds on social media channels.
For/ on occasions – birthdays, anniversaries, etc
Many retailers offer store credits for birthdays and anniversaries, which can be transferred to friends or family members.
This means that you are offering the customer something extra without taking anything in return. This will make customers feel special and encourage them to come back again.
In addition, there are other occasions where you can offer the customer additional store credits such as Christmas or Thanksgiving. This will give them an opportunity to do more shopping with you instead of going elsewhere.
After every order
A loyalty program that gives you a credit for every order is the most common and well-known method of increasing repeat business. This type of loyalty program is easy to implement, as it only requires you to offer a credit that customers can redeem at any time.
For referrals
You can offer customers to refer their friends and family members to your business. This is another way to increase your profits as well as your customer base. It will also help you get more people to buy from your store.
For example, if a customer refers five people who then purchase something from your store, they will be rewarded with $5 worth of credit for each person that purchases through their referral link.
Monthly credit
Offering monthly store credit is a great way to make your customers happy. It also gives them an incentive to shop more often, which will lead to more purchases. You can offer a flat amount of store credits or tiered amounts based on the number of purchases made in a month.
Upon signing up
Offering store credit is a great way to entice customers to sign up for your site. It’s especially useful if you’re just starting out, or if you’re looking to expand your customer base.
This is because once customers receive their first order and like the shopping experience on your Shopify store, they will be likely to spend more on your products or services. This initial store credit reward acts as a nudge to complete their first purchase from you.
Ways to encourage customers to spend more credits to boost repeat sales
Reduce the barrier on the minimum credits required for purchases
Instead of saying one should spend the entirety of the 1000 store credits awarded to them at once, let them use these credits even within a certain range like 100-1000 too.
The idea is to make it common for them to use credits instead of money. This will increase their spending and also reduce the number of unspent credits in their account.
This will help you increase repeat sales as well as open new avenues for revenue generation.
During checkout
If you’re a store owner, you know that the most important time to earn revenue is when a customer is about to check out. It is during this crucial moment that your customers are at their most vulnerable purchase phase.
This is where earning and spending of store credits come in handy. If a customer has already decided on an item, there’s a good chance that they’re going to buy it. But if they haven’t committed themselves yet, then you need to make sure that you capitalize on this opportunity by offering them a deal they can’t refuse!
Display the spendable store credits that they’ve earned here. This prompts them to complete the purchase as it may seem like a steal deal! And in most cases, just the credits will not be enough to make that purchase so the customer will have to pay the remaining amount.
Here’s how Amazon does it – a checkbox that lets customers select if they want to avail of their store credits.
On Thank You page
The last thing you want is for your customers to leave your store and not return. To ensure that they come back, you need to do everything possible to make them feel good about spending their money with you.
Once an order is placed, show them their updated credits available and display product recommendations on which they can use them for purchase. This will encourage them to come back again and again and make more purchases in the future.
This will help you generate more revenue and increase the lifetime value of your customers.
Learn more about this strategy here.
Show them the pricing/ benefits with store credits
When customers receive a store credit, they don’t always realize how much money they saved or how valuable their gift card actually is until they try to redeem it. By showing them how much money they saved when buying from you or how much they can save when shopping again in the future, they will be more satisfied with their purchase and feel like they got a great deal.
For logged-in customers, display pricing of products with the store credits available – eg. for an INR 100 product; display pricing as saving INR 10 with the credits available.
This way, your customers get an idea about everything that is included in the purchase before making a decision. It will hence result in an increase in sales as well as customer satisfaction!
Learn more about this strategy here.
Announcement bars
Announcement bars are a great way to increase the visibility of your store credits and make them more appealing to customers. They can be placed on top of your product listing pages, cart pages, category pages, or any other page where you want to highlight the store credits.
They serve as an excellent marketing tool, which can help you attract new customers and encourage existing customers to spend more.
Here’s how you can execute this. For logged-in customers, display an announcement bar that shows – X credits available until X date! Avail now!” and lead them to product recommendations that they are more likely to buy from.
Set up store credits with the Flits app for customer account pages!
Store credits are a great way of rewarding customers and offering them added value, but the way we implement this feature on our eCommerce store isn’t always the best. To have a well-thought-out store credit structure, you need customer data to understand them better.
And if you’re going to implement store credits in your Shopify store, you should use smart and effective tools to make it grow and prosper.
That’s where Flits comes in, as it brings all the elements and features you need to set up a credits program inside your Shopify store’s customer account page.
