The E-commerce business is booming and it was always predicted to revolutionize the world, or at least the ones who love shopping. The interesting thing is that online shopping websites were able to attract not only the people who already loved shopping but converted many people who never really had a lot of passion for shopping into shopaholics. The idea and the way online shopping works obviously are very exciting on their own. The convenience to both the parties, the shopper as well as the retailer, is immense and plays a huge role in its success.
But it’s not only the mere idea that helped these online stores to attract millions of buyers. It is also a direct result of all the incentives and schemes that were rolled out by the companies in order to attract customers. These schemes were executed beautifully and simply did their job. So let’s have a look at some of the most basic but highly effective reward systems that you should always keep in mind if you want to attract customers to your online shopping business too.
Next Purchase discounts
You must have read those messages in bold and flashy fonts that tell you things like ‘get 15% off on your next purchase. This is a beautiful way of making sure that the customer makes the initial sale. The smart thing about such an offer is that after making the first sale and giving a little discount on the second is quite a good deal for the company. This also gives a small benefit to the purchaser as there is a small discount, thus both parties are ultimately happy.
Option of customization of products
There are all sorts of products available at online shopping stores but most of them come from a production line. That means many identical products are manufactured at the same time, basically like a factory.
So companies came up with brilliant online shopping reward ideas. They gave the customers the option to customize their products. They did this in many ways by giving options like getting your own design printed on clothes, engraving on keychains, color combination on shoes, and so on. This gave a sense of uniqueness to the products. This concept was one of the best rewards or customer loyalty tactics to be put in action as it was met with a lot of positive response
Gift cards
Gift cards are almost similar to the concept of giving discounts on the next purchase but the main difference here is that it is being presented via a card which adds a whole new side to it. The customers feel special and their loyalty towards the brand increases. You always have an online shopping rewards card of the company with you mostly in your wallets or purses, which is a very good form of marketing. Gift cards usually have a much better expiry date than the ‘discount on the next buy’ offers.
Donations
Companies often get your benevolent side to the forefront by offering you a simple way of giving to the needy. Thye offers an option of contributing a small amount to a good cause with the bill at the end of purchases. This helps make the image of the company a lot cleaner and the customers are in turn awarded with a small token that shows them helping the needy with the involvement of the company itself. Apart from this being a very smart tactic of offering rewards it is in itself a good deed too.
Sneak Peaks
Exclusive viewing of new products, collections, or services is an innovative way to provide a feeling of importance and exclusivity among customers. By being able to see and purchase some products before the rest of the people is a successful tactic and a good reward system. It has made a lot of companies a lot of profit as people have rushed to make the required amount and type of purchases to achieve this benefit. This creates a lot of hype about the product and ultimately benefits the company.
Gifts and other winnings post-purchase
Many leading brands have started a program where they offer a free gift or benefit or token after a purchase. These online rewards are sometimes given randomly while sometimes they follow an algorithm. Different companies give different types of rewards.
There have been combinations of wallet money, discounts, promo codes, passes, and other types of grants. And it is just not given after purchase but there are some actions that benefit the company in one way or the other, which when completed lead to a gift being handed out.
Free installations
Free installations have been quite a topic of discussion. A lot of customers wanted free installations to be given on the purchase of an item without having to consider it a reward. This was not the case though. Most companies charge extra for installations. Obviously, There were companies who took this as an opening and introduced free installations as a reward on certain purchases and it turned out to be quite beneficial. It did cost the companies a little money but the customer retention and loyalty increased by a lot more.
Any loyalty programs and techniques that took the form of online shopping rewards did a lot of good to the companies. They helped increase some basic factors like customer loyalty, sales, customer satisfaction, customer retention, and so on. These records are considered to be productive and will be used in the foreseeable future too.