Ecommerce & Retail · Loyalty & Retention
A custom Shopify application that converts cash refunds into store credit and provides merchants with a dynamic rules engine.
Outcome
25% of cash refunds turned into store credit; rules the merchant edits without a developer.
For direct-to-consumer brands, customer acquisition is only half the equation. A successful UK-based e-commerce business operating on Shopify understood that long-term growth depended on retention. Standard loyalty applications on the market offered a rigid, one-size-fits-all approach that failed to meet their specific operational needs.
The company faced two primary points of friction. First, every product return resulted in a direct cash refund, representing both a financial loss and a missed opportunity to retain that customer. Second, their promotional campaigns were broad and untargeted, unable to reward specific buying behaviors or incentivize high-value customer segments effectively.
They required a system built around their business logic. We were engaged to design and build a custom loyalty application that integrated directly with their Shopify store. The objective was to create a platform that reduces cash outflow from returns, rewards nuanced customer behavior, and gives their marketing team precise control over the entire rewards lifecycle.
The challenge
How we solved it
Technologies
The core of the application is a control panel that gives the client's marketing team direct control over the loyalty program. Merchants can set granular rules for how customers earn points, define specific triggers for rewards, and launch targeted promotions for product categories or customer segments. This removes the dependency on developers for campaign management, allowing the business to react quickly to market trends.
To reduce cash outflows, we designed a system that intercepts the standard Shopify refund process. When a return is processed, the monetary value is automatically converted into a non-expiring store credit and deposited into the customer's prize pool. This keeps revenue within the business and provides a strong incentive for customers to make another purchase, turning 25% of cash refunds into a future sale.
How we built it
Intercepted the refund, and made the reward rules editable by the merchant rather than by us. Every cash refund was a customer walking out with the money. The engine hooks Shopify's refund API and turns the refund into non-expiring store credit, which kept 25% of that cash inside the store. The points logic lives in a custom rules engine with its own admin panel, so the merchant changes how points are earned and redeemed without a developer. A one-off migration mapped years of historical orders onto the new points system, so existing customers started with the balance they had earned.
In the client's words
“A quarter of refunds now stay as credit. I change the rules myself, which I did not expect to be allowed to do.”
Tell us what you're building. We'll show you how we'd approach it and what it would take to ship.