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If you own a Shopify store, you must find ways to keep existing customers returning. Shopify loyalty apps help you achieve this goal by enabling you to create a rewards program.
Shopify loyalty apps integrate easily with your online store. They are an excellent solution for rewarding customers for their loyalty, engaging them with special offers, and creating a sense of community.
From including gamification elements to creating loyalty tiers and offering exclusive discounts, these apps have everything you need to make your customers feel valued and earn points seamlessly.
For instance, PassKit is a loyalty program app that integrates with digital wallets such as Apple and Google Wallet and Shopify through Zapier. It enables a connected customer experience, helping customers collect points with their mobile devices whenever they purchase from your business and redeem them for rewards.
PassKit comes with a 45-day free trial, so create your account now.
In this article, we will explore five proven Shopify loyalty apps that can help expand your existing customer base and boost retention.
Let’s begin by explaining customer loyalty programs and discussing their benefits.
What is an eCommerce loyalty program?
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ECommerce loyalty programs incentivize customers to purchase more from your online store by offering points, discounts and other promotions. Customers can redeem points for free products, exclusive goods, free shipping, or other rewards.
ECommerce loyalty programs help you retain customers and attract new ones, increase their purchase frequency and keep them engaged with your brand.
You can manage these loyalty programs through an eCommerce platform or third-party loyalty program software.
Why should you create an eCommerce loyalty program?
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ECommerce loyalty programs help build strong customer relationships, increase user retention, and encourage spending.
They also make tracking customer behavior and collecting data easier to personalize offers and conduct customer experience optimization.
They help you differentiate your store from competitors and provide an opportunity to show customer appreciation.
What is Shopify?
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Shopify is a comprehensive e-commerce solution that enables individuals and businesses to establish and run an online store quickly. It provides many features and services for boosting the growth of your business, including integrated analytics, mobile commerce capabilities, and marketing tools. With Shopify, managing your online sales and expanding your business has never been easier.
How does Shopify work?
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Shopify offers an intuitive dashboard that makes it simple to run your online store.
You can:
- Add products and services
- Configure payment options
- Launch marketing campaigns
- Monitor sales and orders
- Manage customer accounts
Additionally, Shopify provides access to apps and plugins, allowing you to optimize and customize your online store to meet your specific needs.
Does Shopify support loyalty programs?
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Shopify integrates with over 1,000 customer loyalty apps that allow customers to collect and redeem points for rewards. These Shopify apps enable merchants to create loyalty programs that encourage repeat purchases and increase customer satisfaction.
What are Shopify loyalty apps?
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Shopify loyalty apps help online store owners reward and engage customers through loyalty programs.
They typically integrate with a store’s existing checkout process, and you can use them to track customer activity, manage rewards, and communicate with customers.
These apps help you increase customer loyalty and repeat business, leading to higher sales and greater success for your online store.
How do Shopify loyalty apps work?
Shopify loyalty apps typically work by
- Tracking customer loyalty points: When a customer makes a purchase, the Shopify loyalty app will record the transaction and credit the customer with loyalty points. The customer can then use the points to redeem discounts and rewards from the store.
- Keeping track of the customer’s purchase history: The store can tailor rewards and discounts to purchase behavior.
- Offering referral programs: The Shopify loyalty app will credit customers with a referral bonus when they successfully refer a friend. They can use this bonus to purchase store items or redeem rewards and discounts.
- Rewarding customers for leaving reviews: When customers leave a review, they get loyalty points.
- Allowing to send out personalized emails to customers: These emails can be tailored to the customer’s purchase history, offering discounts and rewards relevant to their interests.
Adding a Shopify loyalty app to your online store is an excellent method for increasing customer engagement.
What are the benefits of Shopify loyalty apps?
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Enhancing customer loyalty and retaining customers can significantly boost your online store’s success.
A Shopify loyalty app is a cost-effective and scalable solution. These apps are user-friendly and straightforward to set up and manage, providing detailed analytics to track customer activity and ensuring the security of customer data.
With a Shopify loyalty app, you can rest assured that your customer information is protected, and you can focus on growing your business by keeping customers engaged and coming back for more.
How Shopify loyalty apps improve the customer shopping experience
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Shopify loyalty apps help you provide a personalized customer experience and provide rewards based on their preferences.
Customers get an easy-to-use dashboard or account system, making it simple to track their rewards, progress, and available incentives. It creates a more enjoyable and engaging shopping experience.
Loyalty rewards are easy to redeem, with no complicated processes or restrictions. It makes it simple for customers to take advantage of the benefits they’ve earned.
What features should Shopify loyalty apps include?
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To make the most of the customer relationship, focus on Shopify apps that provide these features:
- Customizable rewards: Shopify loyalty apps should allow businesses to create and manage rewards tailored to their customers.
- Multi-channel support: Customers should be able to access the loyalty program from their preferred digital channels.
- Automated email reminders: Shopify loyalty apps should allow sending automated emails to customers to remind them of their rewards and promotions. It keeps customers up-to-date and ensures they take full advantage of the program.
- Effortless redemption: Customers should be able to easily and quickly redeem their rewards. It could include a simple checkout process or a one-click system to redeem rewards.
These features will help to ensure customers engage with the loyalty program.
How to choose the best Shopify loyalty app for your online store?
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Shopify loyalty apps offer different features and benefits. You must consider your unique business needs and budget to choose the best Shopify loyalty app for your store.
Once you’ve narrowed your selection of Shopify loyalty apps, you should test each one to determine the best fit.
Evaluate all features, user experience, customer service, pricing structure and other essential components. It will help you better understand how the loyalty app will work for your store.
Five best Shopify loyalty apps to use in 2023 to increase customer retention
To help you save time and decide faster, we created a list of the five best Shopify loyalty apps to consider for your online store. Let’s start.
1. PassKit
PassKit is one of the customer loyalty software you can use to reward customers. Unlike other apps on this list, you can integrate PassKit and Shopify with Zapier.
It allows you to create a points reward system without custom app building. It fits non-technical users, so you don’t need coding or design knowledge.
PassKit provides you with a built-in loyalty card design feature you can use to create loyalty program cards aligned with Apple and Google regulations. Customers can store and use these cards with mobile wallets and exchange points for rewards.
You can promote and distribute your loyalty reward cards on multiple digital channels and send push notifications to increase customer engagement with your rewards program for small business.
With PassKit and Shopify integration, you can automate many manual processes, such as:
- Enrolling PassKit members for new customers in Shopify
- Giving PassKit points for new orders in Shopify
- Burning, earning, and setting points
- Changing member tiers
- Updating card expiry date
- Checking in, checking out and deleting program members
Starting with PassKit is easy. You can even activate a 45-day free trial to test all features.
Features list
- Send all info between PassKit membership and Shopify automatically
- Manage loyalty memberships and cards for Apple Wallet and Google Wallet
- Run digital coupon campaigns for Apple Wallet and Google Wallet
- Integrate with marketing automation tools, CRM, and email management tools in a single click.
- Use comprehensive mobile wallet APIs and SDKs
What makes this tool unique
PassKit offers advanced analytics. You can set up a loyalty scheme, craft digital loyalty cards and monitor redemption rates.
With PassKit, you can determine if the customer has stored your loyalty card in their mobile wallet, how many devices they have employed to use your digital passes, how they are using them, and if they have deleted them.
You can review how the loyalty program performs and make the necessary changes by evaluating these details.
Pricing
The monthly cost of the PassKit subscription is calculated according to the number of members of your customer loyalty program and the volume of passes you create.
For instance, the cost of the basic monthly plan could look like this:
- $39.50 for 250 members
- $44.00 for 350 members
- $50.75 for 500 members
- $73.25 for 1000 members
To learn more, you can visit our Pricing page.
Pros
- It doesn’t involve any coding, designing, or printing
- It’s easy to use and quick to set up
- It adjusts to the size of your business
- The cost depends on your requirements
- You can evaluate all the features for 45 days
- It has 24/7 online support
- It provides detailed guidance and documentation
Cons
- A free plan is not available
To enjoy all digital transformation benefits, you can create your account and start a 45-day free trial.
2. Stamped
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The Stamped loyalty application intends to give you the capacity to manage various loyalty programs. It allows you to set up different rewards like free shipping, discounts, and gift cards.
Using Stamped, you make a versatile, mobile-friendly page where your clients can see what loyalty programs you offer. You can pick logos, themes and colors to ensure that visuals match your brand.
The app also allows you to set various program structures, such as a system based on points and rewards, a VIP-tier-based loyalty program, or a program combining the former two (point and tier-based).
User Rating
Shopify app store rated Stamped 4.7 out of 5 based on 560 user reviews.
Features list
- Review monitoring
- Response management
- Campaign management
- Negative feedback management
What makes this tool unique
You can choose from multiple reward options to make your program attractive and engaging for your customers. You can reward them for purchasing products, writing reviews and rating products, social sharing, and more. The rewards choices include percentage discounts, free shipping, and gift cards.
Pricing
Stamped offers five pricing plans:
- Basic for individuals – $19/month
- Premium plan for professionals – $49/ month
- Business for mid-sized businesses – $119/month
- Professional for growing businesses – $249/month
- Enterprise – custom pricing
Pros
- Allows to import reviews from other sites easily
- The dashboard is easy to navigate
- Enables you to moderate and publish reviews daily
Cons
- Occasionally some bugs occur
- Inconsistent customer support (from very swift to no response)
- Customer reward calculation should be more flexible
3. Smile.io
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Smile is a Shopify loyalty program app that allows you to create attractive loyalty programs for your customers based on loyalty points or a tier. Its straightforward editor gives you complete control over your loyalty program, allowing you to make any changes and reward program participants. It also provides valuable insights to adjust your program for better conversions.
Using Smile, you can easily track and analyze the points balance of the program members, monitor the reward history, referral links and more. It gives you a clear picture of how effective your loyalty program is.
User Rating
Shopify app store rated Smile 4,8 out of 5 based on 4872 user reviews.
Features list
- Gamification
- Multi-channel marketing
- ROI tracking
- Referral tracking
What makes this tool unique
Smile has multiple features that allow you to reward points to your customers for sharing birthdays, subscribing to newsletters, placing an order, and following on social media.
Pricing
The price of a monthly Smile subscription depends on the platform that you use it with and starts at $49 a month.
Pros
- Simple interface
- Customization of reward types and ways of earning points
- Integration with popular email providers like Klaviyo and MailChimp
Cons
- It demands a certain level of customer support to educate customers on how to sign in and redeem points (the app appears as a pop-up in your store)
- Sometimes when customers redeem points for a discount code, the code is challenging to find
4. LoyaltyLion
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LoyaltyLion is a Shopify loyalty program app that reveals the income potential of your store by giving you real-time data on the performance of your loyalty programs. This actionable intelligence allows you to re-think and upgrade your loyalty programs to create a base of brand enthusiasts.
By working with LoyaltyLion, you can construct point and tier-based loyalty programs for your stores. Tier-based loyalty programs allow you to offer different rewards to your customers based on their accomplishments. It motivates them to shop more to achieve higher rewards.
Apart from this, you can also conduct A/B tests for your loyalty programs to evaluate multiple program concepts and identify the most effective and attractive loyalty program for your customers.
User Rating
Shopify app store rated Loyalty Lion 4,5 out of 5 based on 430 user reviews.
Features list
- Member portal
- Rewards management
- Membership management
- Activity tracking
- Referral tracking
- CRM
What makes this tool unique
LoyaltyLion lets you use instant points and in-cart rewards to boost customer engagement and reward redemption. You can personalize your messages and share them with on-site notifications. You can also let customers earn points and redeem rewards in-store and online.
Pricing
LoyaltyLion offers three paid plans:
- Classic, including 2,000 monthly orders, from $399 a month
- Advanced, including 4,000 monthly orders, from $729 a month
- Plus, including 10,000 monthly orders, from 1,650 a month
Pros
- The app doesn’t require much attention after you set it up
- Analytics that show the most valuable customers and those at risk of leaving
- Customization options allow designing a program that suits a brand very well
- It enables rewarding points for reviews and following on social media
Cons
- Using some of the possibilities of LoyaltyLion requires coding and a development team
- Offering more complex loyalty rewards requires a lot of manual work
5. Growave
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Growave is one of the most interesting Shopify loyalty program apps that allows you to construct attractive loyalty programs for your store. It lets you create point and VIP-level-based rewards systems to gratify customers for activities that lead to conversions.
Moreover, it has features such as collecting customer reviews, enabling customers to write reviews and post pictures to gain loyalty reward points, a wishlist, one-click social logins, and a shoppable Instagram gallery widget to showcase Instagram photos on store pages.
User Rating
Shopify app store rated Growave 4,8 out of 5 based on 1,829 user reviews.
Features list
- POS integration
- Referral Program
- VIP tiers
- Reviews
- Wishlists
- Social login
- Instagram Gallery
What makes this tool unique
Growave makes it possible to put social login buttons on any page of your Shopify website, allowing customers to log in with one click. It also retains customers’ shopping carts after they leave and keeps them the same even if they switch devices. Growave automatically labels people who sign in with social media and synchronizes your Shopify user database.
Pricing
Growave offers four paid plans, each including a 30-day free trial.
- Basic for up to 75 orders for $9 a month
- Starter for up to 150 orders for $19 a month
- Medium for up to 500 orders for $49 a month
- Growth for up to 1000 orders for $99 a month
Pros
- It offers multiple customization options for loyalty rewards and visuals
- Good customer support
- Provides automated coupons based on reviews which help to boost the number of reviews
Cons
- It doesn’t allow you to customize the text for reward pop up
- The app doesn’t support multiple languages
Still unsure which Shopify app to choose? We prepared a quick overview in a table form.
A quick overview of Shopify loyalty apps
Here’s a comparison table to help you see how these Shopify loyalty apps differ.
| PassKit | Stamped | Smile | LoyaltyLion | Growave | |
| User reviews | N/A | 4.7 | 4.8 | 4.5 | 4.8 |
| Key features | -Multi-channel distribution -POS and CRM integration -Immediate tracking of pass distribution and performance | -Review monitoring -Response management -Negative feedback management | -Gamification -Multi-channel marketing -Referral tracking | -Rewards tracking -Activity tracking -CRM | -Wishlists -Social login -Instagram gallery |
| Ease of use | 4.8 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 4.8 | 4.7 |
| Mobile wallet integration | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Scalability | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Customer support | Email Help center Chat | Email FAQ Knowledge base Phone | Email Knowledge base Chat | Email Knowledge Base FAQ Phone Chat | Email Chat |
| Free plan | No | Yes | Only for WIX | Yes | No |
| Pricing starting at | $39,50 a month | $19 a month | $49 a month | $399 a month | $9 a month |
Now that you can see how the apps vary, let’s sum up the results of our research.
Shopify loyalty apps: Our verdict
Shopify loyalty apps are a great way to reward customers for their loyalty. They allow companies to offer their customers rewards, discounts, and other incentives to encourage them to return and make more purchases.
We recommend you start utilizing PassKit, as it is easy to set up and use. With just a few clicks, you can set up incentives and rewards for your customers, and they can start earning rewards immediately. PassKit also makes it easy to monitor customer activity and track how many rewards they’ve earned.
Finally, PassKit is cost-effective. You don’t have to pay for hosting, which makes it an excellent option for businesses on a budget. Additionally, it offers features like gift cards, advanced analytics, and more to help you maximize your return on investment.
To evaluate all features, start a 45-day free trial for PassKit.
