Former police officer, work from home and stay at home dad of four kids, Robert Smutek has been selling natural supplements online since the late 90s.
A few years ago he noticed new competitors were discounting heavily to grab market share. By 2014, he was fed up and decided to fight back.
But how? He did not want go into a price war. He decided to do some research.
His research indicated that loyalty/rewards programs were very effective in keeping customers returning and shopping, even if competitors offered lower prices.
A loyalty program involves offering rewards to customers for continuing to buy from a business.
Industries notorious for intense competition such as the airline and hotel industries have successfully used loyalty programs to increase revenue and remain competitive.
Once he decided to offer rewards, the next step was to find a loyalty app that would work with his online store, which was running on the BigCommerce platform.
A bit of google searching uncovered a loyalty app called RewardCamp.
His research also indicated that most loyalty/rewards programs fail for two reasons:
- The rewards program is too complicated
- The business makes it difficult for customers to earn and use rewards
RewardCamp focuses on offering a rewards experience that is easy and delightful to customers.
With RewardCamp, Rob’s customers would not have to jump through hoops. They would not have to redeem points. It would be done for them automatically.
Rob’s customers would not have to worry about keeping track of their rewards. The rewards would be automatically added to a customer’s cart.
It made sense to Rob. He decided to go with RewardCamp.
The decision paid off. Since implementing RewardCamp, Shop4Vitamins has increased repeat orders from $21,441/year to $56,936/year, a 265% increase.
