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Create a gamification strategy in your e-commerce store with YITH WooCommerce Points and Rewards

Among the many plugins that we have redesigned and improved, our YITH WooCommerce Points & Rewards is without a doubt among the most interesting ones.

The plugin development concept was originally meant to allow an e-commerce owner to set a points-based loyalty program so that customers could collect points and redeem them as a discount on future purchases. An idea that is simple and powerful, and not only allows you to loyalize customers but also encourages them to come back and buy again. 

The plugin, though, had basic features and many of the customers who have been using it for a long time have required more advanced options to build proper gamification strategies on their online shop. 

What is a gamification strategy?

Gamification” is intended as the use of rules and engagement mechanisms proper of the gamers world (hence the term gamification < game) in non-game environments, so in contexts that have a totally different purpose than a game. 

A gamification strategy applied to an e-commerce store, for example, allows incentivizing customers to buy more by offering them targets and objectives to achieve and rewards that can trigger – and in a totally unconscious way – a positive feeling of fulfilment, of victory in the buyer. 

The e-commerce stores that leverage these principles are countless: AliExpress, Alibaba and Shein, just to mention some, make large use of points, levels and rewards to loyalize customers and make the purchase experience much more personalized and interactive. 

What can you do, for example, to take advantage of the gamification strategies in your own shop?

  • incentivize users to register into your site to get 10 points;
  • assign 1 point every first daily access to your shop;
  • reward 5 points to the users on their birthday;
  • assign 2 points every time customers leave a review for a product they have purchased; 
  • reward customers who have a total spend history of €500 in your shop with 50 extra points;
  • create a referral strategy and reward 10 extra points to customers who promote your e-commerce store – by sharing a dedicated link – and by incentivizing new customers to register as well;
  • create levels, badges and public ranks: small challenges among customers can encourage customers to buy and push users to take targeted actions to move on to the next level and get more benefits.

These are certainly the most common use cases, but for sure not the only ones. With the new version of YITH WooCommerce Points and Rewards, there’s really a bunch of new possibilities and options to build a powerful loyalization and gamification strategy in your e-commerce store.

Let’s take a look at the most interesting ones.

1. A brand-new UX and code refactoring

We had already worked on this plugin a few months ago, but we took the opportunity of the new gamification features to work also on a redesign and a global refactoring to make the configuration process even more intuitive and to optimize the performances.

New UX and code refactoring

The new options panel is much easier to use and it has the same modern style and design as the other plugins restyled in the last years.

2. Create levels and badges

Since version 3.0 it is possible to create unlimited levels to rank your customers based on the number of points collected.

For example, you will be able to quickly spot all the customers who have collected up to 150 points in the “Junior” level and add achievements to scale up to the top one, the “Super buyer”, a level that can be achieved by users who collect more than 5000 points.

You will be able to customize the name and the color of every level and associate a graphic badge that will be displayed in “My account” and in the public ranking (but this is what we will further examine in the next paragraph!).

Level and Badges

3. The public user ranking and their points

A key principle of gamification is without a doubt the competition: we all love being on top of the ranking, it’s a matter of fact.

That’s why we have added a feature that has been requested cyclically for this plugin: a shortcode that allows showing the customer ranking based on the total points collected.

Public ranking

There are two layouts available (“Simple” and “Boxed”) and all you have to do is to click to copy the shortcode and paste it on the page where you want the ranking to be displayed.

4. Advanced point-awarding rules

In the previous version, you could set a global value to assign the points based on the product price. You could override this value on specific categories or products.

Since version 3.0 the options available in products and categories have been replaced by the “rules”. Through the rules, for instance, you can set the following condition: if the customers purchase products (any product) for a total of €100, they can get 10 points; but at the same time, for product A they can either get 5 points or none at all.

And this is not the only thing you can do: with the rules, you can set several values for specific user roles, only for specific membership plans (thanks to the integrations with our YITH WooCommerce Membership plugin) or just for users who have achieved a specific “level” or that have accumulated a certain number of points.

Points assignments

In this way, “Junior” users have accumulated less than 100 points and will get 1 point every €10 spent, whereas “Gold” users that have accumulated 500 points will be rewarded for their loyalty with 5 points for the same amount spent.

5. Advanced point-redemption rules

Besides the point-awarding rules, we have also added the possibility to create advanced rules for redeeming the accumulated points. Also, in this case, they can be applied to only specific user roles of your choice, users with a specific membership plan and users who have collected a specific number of points.

Advanced point-redemption rules

Thanks to these rules, you can set a global value (e.g. if you use 100 points you can get a €1 discount) and set a higher value (e.g. if you use 100 points you can get a €10 discount) only for loyal customers who have collected a higher number of points so far. 

6. The new “Extra points” 

Rewarding customers for the purchases they make in your shop is a good starting point, but it’s not enough. To loyalize them and make everything more interesting, you also have to throw in some other sort of incentive that goes beyond the single order. 

This is the reason why we have also conceived the “Extra points” options that allow assigning additional points when specific conditions are met, on specific occasions, specific user actions or achievements and so on.

In the previous version we had the following extra points options:

  • points on registration, e.g. 5 points to the user who creates a new account in your shop;
  • points on user’s birthday, e.g. 10 points on the user’s birthday;
  • points per review, e.g. 2 points for every new product review published;
  • points per order, e.g. 5 points for every new order placed;
  • points per amount spent, e.g. 10 points for users who have a purchase history of at least €500
  • points per cart total, e.g. 20 points if the total value of the current cart is at least €100

Since version 3.0, you will also find:

  • points per first daily access, e.g. 1 point for every daily login;
  • points for completed profile, e.g 2 points to users who complete and fill out all the empty fields in their profile, like address, payment method and all the other fields in My Account;
  • points on referral, e.g. 5 points for every new user registered through the customer’s referral link;
  • points on referred purchases, e.g. 10 points for every purchase made by users registered through the customer’s referral link;
  • extra points for the 1st ranked user, e.g. 1 point to the user who shows up as the 1st in the weekly or monthly ranking for collecting the highest number of points; 
  • points for specific level achievements, e.g. 10 points for users who achieve the “Super Buyer” level.
The new “Extra points” settings

We will not stop here: in the next plugin updates, we will add more conditions for extra points. If you have any suggestions or requests regarding the extra points, please, leave a comment below and we’ll see if we can integrate them 🙂

7. Banners to show to your customers in My Account 

Creating the rules to assign points and plan the achievements that your users have to reach, is just the first step, then you have to find a way to promote them: if your customers DO NOT KNOW that they can get additional points by leaving reviews, why on earth should they take the time to do that?
It is for this reason that we introduced the “banners”, a brand-new functionality of YITH WooCommerce Points & Rewards 3.0.

Banners to show to your customers in My Account

This functionality allows creating unlimited “banners”. You can choose among three different types of banners: 

  • Simple informative banners (with custom text) that you can use to show custom messages to your customers in My account.
  • “Target” banners: these banners are associated with specific extra points rules and allow showing a progress bar that shows customers the available targets they can achieve. For example, a target banner associated with a rule that gives extra points on a total spend of €500 will display a progress bar with the total spent so far and the remaining amount needed to achieve the target of €500.
  • “Get points” banners: these banners are used as a proper call to action as they push the user to perform a specific action to get points in return. For example, a banner of this kind can push users to review their recently purchased products, share their referral link, or to complete all the missing details in their profile.

Banners can be fully customized: text, colors, icons, and images can be used to achieve an eye-catching result.

8. The option to convert points into a coupon code (and “give it as a gift” to another user)

Another top-requested feature was the possibility to give points to another user or convert them into a coupon code and share it easily.

We always take our customers’ wishes seriously: that’s why since version 3.0 you will be able to find an option that lets customers convert their points into a coupon code right from the My Account page.

The option to convert points into a coupon code (and “give it as a gift” to another user)

As an admin, you will be able to set some restrictions, like making sure that the user has a minimum of 300 points to be able to generate the coupon code or a maximum of 1000 points that can be turned into a code. 

Conclusions

These are the main new changes packed in this plugin update, but there are also many more options that we did not mention here that have been added and that have been dramatically improved.

For this reason, we suggest you take a look at the new live demo of YITH WooCommerce Points & Rewards, where you can also see the banners in My Account and the public ranking with top users and their points.

Remember to click on “Launch admin demo” to access the plugin panel and see and test yourself all the available admin options.
We also invite you to check the product page of YITH WooCommerce Points and Rewards to find out more details and check the full list of all the features of this plugin, a key tool if you want to build an efficient and positive gamification strategy in your e-commerce store.

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