Members of your loyalty program can earn points via a range of methods, primarily through making purchases. This article explains the mechanics behind points earning methods and how points expire.
Earning points
Earning points by making a purchase
When a shopper makes a purchase online or at a POS location, they'll earn points for their order. The number of points earned are based on the order's net value after deducting discounts, shipping, and taxes, multiplied by the shopper's tier's points earning ratio.
Points earned with purchases are issued after the order is fulfilled plus the defined points effective period in your progam settings
Note - Orders made as a draft order are not processed for points earning or tier progress.
Earning points through bonuses
As a part of your loyalty program, you may offer bonus points to shoppers during certain events. Currently this may include:
Welcome bonus - points earned for registering an account
Tier entry - points earned the first time a shopper reaches a higher spending tier or new custom tier
Birthday bonus - points earned on the 1st day of the customers birthday month
Adding and deducting points manually
Staff can add or deduct points for an account by searching for them in our Shopify admin app or Shopify POS app.
Other methods
Bonus point campaigns - Grant extra points for orders during set periods.
Flow actions - Create custom point granting mechanisms via Shopify's Flow app.
Expiring points
By default, points always expire 365 days after being granted.
When points are used to redeem rewards or manually deducted, the nearest expiring point transactions will be used first
Refunds
When an order is refunded, points earned with the order will also become invalid.
If a customer has already used their points before the refund is processed, the customer may end up with a negative point balance. The negative point balance can be negated with future point earning.
To avoid such behavior, we suggest setting up the "points effective period" to match your store's return window to ensure points are only given out after the refund period.
Modifying point earning settings
In your OMNI admin, you will be able to modify certain point earning settings prior to your loyalty program launch, including
Points effective period - the number of days OMNI will keep the points pending after an order is fulfilled before granting it to the shopper
Welcome bonus - whether to enable or disable, and the amount of points granted
Points effective period - We recommend setting the point effective period to be equal to or longer than your store's return period to avoid cases where shoppers may use the points then refund the order