This article discusses how customers gain points for purchases. If you'd like to learn how to manage your customer's loyalty points balance and accounts, check out our article.
Points per $1 spent
The make a purchase rule allows customers to gain points for spending money at your online store.
Customers will earn points for every $1 (or whichever currency your store is set to). The points calculation is based on the total paid minus shipping.
Orders will be processed as paid once they are paid in full. This means that customers who pay in installments will get their points once they have made the final payment for their order.
Success tip: We advise setting this rule to give between 1-5 points per £/$ spent
Note: At present, rewarding customers decimal points for each $1 spent is not available. The minimum point value per unit of currency is 1 point per 1 unit.
You can make additional modifications to points awarded using the Points Modifier Feature, available on the Plus plan or as an Enhancement.
Approval period
There is an approval period set to 14 days by default. The approval period puts the points in a pending state until the set period has passed. While the points are going through the approval period, customers cannot spend them.
This feature is designed to protect your store from abuse. Without an approval period, a customer could quickly spend their points after making a purchase and then return their order for a refund.
If you set an approval period, your customers will only be able to use these points once the specified time has elapsed. The approval period starts after the associated order has been paid. Your customer will be able to see that their points are pending in the customer history table.
The approval period is helpful with the customer retention journey. Consider:
Your customer makes a purchase in your store
Their points go into pending state. This means, that for X number of days your customers are not able to use the points.
Once the points are approved, a Reward available reminder (one of our automatic LoyaltyLion emails) is sent to your customers to let them know they can use their points on rewards and to drive them back for a second purchase.
Success tip: We suggest setting the approval period to 30 days maximum, to match your store's returns policy or to shorten the time to the second purchase.
When the approval period is changed in LoyaltyLion, the change will only apply to new purchases. For example, if the period is changed from 14 days to 3 days the orders that were made before the change will still have an approval period of 14 days.
Please be aware: We recommend that you set the approval period the same as your return policy. If you don't, your customers may find themselves with a negative points balance if they return the item after having used the points earned from the purchase.
Reward historic purchases
Historic purchases are those that a customer has placed in the past. We allow you to give these customers points for their previous purchases if you enable this setting.
With this feature enabled, people check out as guests and we remember how many points they should have earned from the loyalty program.
You can then email these guests telling them they have points waiting for them as soon as they create an account. When they create an account on your store, they'll automatically receive all the points for their past purchases from the last X days/months or the day the loyalty program started (if you just launched the program).
Note: the points calculation will be based on the settings that are applied to the purchase rule at the time the customers create an account.
For example, say a customer places an order while the purchase rule value is 3 points per $. If you then update the rule value to be 1 point per $, then when the customer enrols in the program, they will receive 1 point per $ for each order within the window.
For example, say a customer places an order while the purchase rule is disabled. If you then update the rule to be enabled, then when the customer enrols in the program, they will receive points for all their orders within the window.
Say a customer places an order when the purchase rule is enabled. If you then update the rule to be disabled, then when the customer enrols in the program, they will not receive any points for their orders.
Note: For programs with tiers, points awarded are based on the default tier.
This feature is designed to increase the number of shoppers who create full accounts. Shoppers tend to check out as guests because there is less friction. Often your conversion will be higher with the first purchase. However, by the 2nd and 3rd purchases, shoppers are more likely to return if they have a full account.
We built this feature because we knew it was important not to interrupt a new shopper the first time they buy because this can harm conversion. This feature works after they've already purchased from your store.
Please be aware: when the reward historic purchases setting is changed in LoyaltyLion from a shorter to a longer period, the change will only apply to new purchases. For example, if the rule changes from 1 month to 3 months the program will not backdate orders prior to the change of this setting into account.
When are the historic purchase points earned - at the time the customer orders, or at the time they sign up?
Historic purchase points are earned at the time the customer becomes a program member. This also means that the points can't expire until a customer enrols in the program.
Exclude collection
Not available on Magento
You can exclude a collection from earning points on your store. If there is a collection in your store that you do not want customers to earn points on, you can enter the collection ID in this section. To use this, enter your collection ID in the box provided and click on "Find collection".
The collection ID is the number found at the end of the URL when viewing a collection in your Shopify admin - see screenshot below:
This should be a number - for example, 277277639
You can only exclude products that already exist in your store and have a product ID. A collection that is excluded will exclude all items in that collection, regardless of whether that item is in another collection.
Plus Plan Users: you will be able to exclude a collection/product from earning points by setting up a Points Modifier and setting the modifier to 0x points. You will need to do this because the "exclude collection" settings don’t appear in the UI for Plus plan users.
FAQ
Q. Is there a way to set my existing customers up with points based on their previous orders prior to the install of LoyaltyLion?
Yes, this can be achieved with a points import. If any of the customers in your import already exist in LoyaltyLion, the points will be added to their accounts.
For customers that exist in your store but not in LoyaltyLion, they will be created and given the specified number of points. These points will be added to each customer immediately as approved points. You can read more in our imports documentation.
Q. When customers make a purchase do they earn points for shipping and tax?
[Shopify] Customers will not earn points on shipping. Tax will depend on your settings you canfind the steps on how to adjust that here.
Q. My customer has negative points. Why?
If customers use their points but later on return their order, they will end up with negative points in their account ( because we will deduct the points earned from that purchase). To avoid this scenario, we recommend setting up the Approval Period the same as your return policy.
Q. My customer hasn't paid for their order yet, but they have pending points for that order. Why is that?
We give pending points right away as soon as an order is created so that customers get immediate feedback on their actions.
The order will remain pending until the order has been paid and the approval period you've chosen has elapsed since the time of payment.
Q. I can see an 'approve' button next to a pending order in the admin UI. When would I use it?
Under normal circumstances, this is never required. The 'approve' button is available specifically for those times your customer team may wish to allow the customer to use their points after they've paid but before the approval period is over - i.e. if you're confident that they won't refund their previous order, and they wish to use their points on a new order right away.
Q. How is the points total for my customers' orders calculated?
The points are calculated based on the cart total. For example:
Customer A adds $50 worth of goods to their cart. They have a discount code of 10% off and they apply this to the order. This brings the cart total to $45. They are also charged shipping of $5. This brings the cart total to $50.
In this case, customer A gains $45 worth of points, so the final cart total minus shipping.
Q. How do you round the points for the customers' orders?
We use standard rounding (Math.round(value_in_cents/100)). So if the customer spends anywhere above $0.50 we’ll be rounding up. If $0.49 or less, we’ll round down.