As you may well know, Shopify has made some major changes lately. One such change is the arrival of New Customer Accounts, and with that, Shopify introduced an even more exciting new feature—Store Credit!
What is store credit, and why is it exciting?
Store credit is, essentially, a form of store-specific currency. And that’s exactly what makes it exciting. It offers an awesome way to promote long-term loyalty and retain customers.
For instance, rather than offering a classic refund to customers, you can offer store credit, thus ensuring the revenue stays with you.
Here are just a few reasons that make store credit especially appealing to your customers and your bottom line:
- You can issue store credit quickly instead of forcing customers to wait for long money refund processing times.
- You can incentivize customers to stay and spend more with you, offering them the chance to get to know your brand.
- You can create customer loyalty by using a loyalty app like Froonze Loyalty & Wishlist that integrates seamlessly with the store credit feature (more on that later).
Who can use Shopify’s native store credit?
The short answer? Merchants and app developers can both benefit from integrating this feature into their business.
As mentioned earlier in this article, merchants need to use Shopify’s New Customer Accounts since store credit is only available on that version. Shopify made it possible for the store credit balance to be showcased on the storefront by using Liquid code. Furthermore, merchants can add or remove store credit directly from a customer’s profile in Shopify Admin → Customers.
App developers, such as ourselves, can use the Shopify API to create some amazing features for merchants. And that’s exactly what we did with store credit.
The best way to use store credit is through Froonze loyalty
We might be reaching here, but we believe that one of the best use cases for store credit is rewarding your loyal customers.
Generally, loyalty programs come with a points reward system, and sometimes, with the ability for merchants to offer free products to customers. While this is great in itself, it is a bit constraining.
Therefore, we think that rewarding customer loyalty with store credit, as opposed to loyalty points, is way better for 3 reasons:
- Customers can simply apply their store credit at checkout without needing to redeem anything.
- Customers can purchase products “for free” by using their store credit instead of actual money.
- While only Shopify Plus merchants can add point redeeming widgets to checkout, store credit is available to all.
How Froonze can help create customer loyalty with store credit
If the reasons above are not convincing enough, then we took it a step further and fully integrated store credit into our loyalty functionality.
We’ve made it possible for merchants to issue store credit to customers as a form of loyalty payment for various loyalty actions. That means that customers can earn store credit for placing orders, celebrating their birthdays, engaging on social media, and more.
It doesn’t stop there! Your customers can refer friends, and both can earn store credit. We haven’t forgotten about the VIP Program either. Merchants are free to offer more store credit for purchases, and even reward store credit alone. The configuration is tier-dependent, so each tier can be individually customized as desired!
We’ve even made it possible to earn points for some actions and store credit for others. Talk about full flexibility and customization freedom!
You might be wondering how customers use the store credit they’ve earned through our loyalty functionality. When you create a store credit-based loyalty program with Froonze, your customers can use the earned store credit at checkout.
The option to apply store credit is treated by Shopify as a payment method. As a result, when customers use store credit during checkout, our app's store credit reward mechanism will get triggered. That means that paying with store credit results in being rewarded with store credit for the order where store credit was used.
Install Froonze and create a Shopify store credit loyalty program
We’ve talked and touted how amazing Shopify’s store credit feature is, and especially what a powerful customer retention engine it can turn into when paired with the right loyalty app.
It’s time you see it in action and install Froonze! If it’s your first time installing the app, you’ll benefit from a 14-day free trial!
