How to add a loyalty program to your Ecwid store

Most small stores spend almost all of their marketing effort on finding new customers, and very little on bringing back the ones they already have. A loyalty program flips that: every order a customer places brings them a little closer to a reward, which gives them a reason to come back to your store instead of searching for the product again.

This guide walks through setting one up on an Ecwid store with BizLoop Rewards. It takes about ten minutes, and you don't need to touch any code.

How it works for your customers

Before the setup, here's what your customers will experience:

They sign in to their account on your store.
Every paid order earns them points, based on what they spent.
A rewards button on your store shows their balance and the rewards they can unlock.
When they have enough points, they redeem a reward and get a single-use discount code to use at checkout.

If an order is refunded or cancelled, the points it earned are taken back automatically, so nobody can game the system.

Step 1: Install the app

Open the BizLoop Rewards page in the Ecwid App Market and click Install. Then open the app from My Apps in your Ecwid control panel. Your rewards account is created the first time you open it, using your Ecwid store details.

Step 2: Decide how customers earn points

In Settings, you choose three things:

Points per dollar spent. The default is 1 point per 1 unit of your currency. Points are based on what the customer paid for products after discounts, not on shipping or tax.
A sign-up bonus (optional). Points a customer gets just for joining. This is a great nudge to get people to create an account, which they need to earn points at all.
Points expiry (optional). Points can expire a set number of months after they're earned. Expiry adds a gentle sense of urgency, but keep it generous (12 months is a good start) so customers don't feel cheated.

Step 3: Create your first reward

Go to Rewards and create one. Each reward has:

A discount: a fixed amount (for example $5 off) or a percentage (for example 10% off).
What it applies to: the whole order, specific categories, or specific products.
The cost in points: how many points a customer spends to unlock it.
Optional limits: a minimum order amount, how many times the reward can be claimed in total, and an expiry date.

Then activate it. Only active rewards show up on your store.

A good first reward is one a regular customer can reach after two or three orders. For example, if your average order is $40 and you give 1 point per dollar, a $5 off reward for 100 points is reachable on the third order. That's about 5% back on what they spent, which most stores can afford, and it's earned only by customers who come back.

Step 4: Make the widget look like your store

In Storefront, you can choose how the rewards widget looks: the modern design is a slide-out panel where you set the brand colour, light or dark style, corner shape, and the label, icon and position of the button that opens it. It picks up your store's font, so it feels like part of your site.

Step 5: Tell your customers

The program only works if people know about it. A few easy places to mention it:

Your order confirmation emails: "You just earned points with this order."
A short line on your homepage or in your store's announcement bar.
Your next newsletter: explain how it works in two sentences and mention the sign-up bonus.

A few tips

Start with one or two rewards. Too many options make the decision harder. You can add more once you see what customers claim.
Check the numbers after a month. Look at how many customers joined and how many rewards were claimed, then adjust the point cost if rewards are too easy or too hard to reach.
Remind people of their balance. Customers who know they're close to a reward are much more likely to come back for it.

Setting up a loyalty program is one of the cheapest ways to grow a small store, because you're spending on customers who already like what you sell.