The Store Credit Playbook: New marketing weapons for your Shopify store
Replacing discount codes and points with real cash
I’ve been bullish about Store Credit as a powerful tool for Shopify stores for a while.
Discount codes, gift cards, loyalty points - they are all tried and tested, but they are also tired and can be clunky.
So I’ve put my money where my mouth is and am excited to launch Stork Credit, as an app that extends Shopify’s native Store Credit functionality to create cashback, loyalty and rewards campaigns that scale.
Surprisingly, I am finding store credit is unfamiliar to a lot of people working in ecommerce, particularly on Shopify.
So I’ve put together this playbook to share some ideas that will hopefully trigger your imagination, and give you some new marketing weapons.
Disclaimer: some of the recommendations will need you to install Stork Credit, but there are also plenty of features you can use without adding any new apps to your store.
Why Store Credit kicks the arse of the old tools
Let’s be honest about the tools most of us have been leaning on for years…
Discount codes have to be remembered, typed in, or hunted down in an old email thread. Half the time the customer either forgets them or goes Googling for a better one, and you end up subsidising someone else’s affiliate blog. They’re also a blunt instrument — every new campaign means another code, another rule, another thing to explain. Analytics can be painful too.
Gift cards are fine until they’re not. If the email doesn’t land in the inbox, or the customer can’t find the code, it’s a support ticket. They’re also a nightmare across multiple currencies — still locked to one shop currency in Shopify — which is a pain the moment you start selling internationally.
Points-based loyalty programs ask your customers to do maths. “You have 847 stars, which converts to $12.40 at a rate of...” No one wants to think that hard when they’re trying to buy a pair of shoes.
Store Credit fixes all of that.
It’s just dollars in an account.
Customers log in, see their balance, and it appears automatically at checkout as a payment method.
No codes, no conversions, no chasing a lost email.
Customers can only use it with the email that they are using to actually place an order, so it helps avoid customers claiming multiple sign up discounts.
Works natively with Shopify Markets in any currency.
Works with B2B company locations.
Fully compatible with ShopPay and POS.
It’s the experience your customers have been quietly expecting for years.
What Customers see…
On checkout:
In their account:
But, Shopify’s built in functionality has some gaps:
No way to bulk import or export store credit
No way to automatically generate store credit for customers
No Shopify Flow triggers or actions
The Plays
Here are some of the campaigns you can run with Store Credit. Not all of them will be right for you. But all are better than yet another “10% off for joining our newsletter” pop-up. And they are all easy to achieve with Stork Credit.
1. Cashback
Simple concept. Instead of running a discount on the current sale (which eats your margin today), you issue a percentage of the order total back as Store Credit for the next purchase.
You’ve just converted a one-off transaction into a reason to come back. Your margin stays intact on today’s order, and the credit only “costs” you anything when it pulls a future sale.
How Stork Credit helps: One-click cashback template. Set your percentage (say 5%), flip it on, and every paid order automatically gets credit issued. Assign the promo to specific products or collections if you need to.
2. Welcome credit instead of discount code
The welcome discount is one of the most overused tools in ecommerce. Swap the “HELLO10” code for $10 of Store Credit that lands in the customer’s account when they sign up.
It feels more premium. There’s nothing to type. And because it’s sitting in their account waiting to be spent, it nudges them back with genuine urgency.
And it’s simple to set up in Shopify Flow using this template:
→ Here’s a template to get started.
3. Post-purchase “thanks for being you” drops
Drop $5 or $10 of Store Credit into the accounts of customers after their second or third order. No campaign, no email blast, just a quiet “you got credit” notification.
It’s a lovely bit of unexpected delight, and it converts brilliantly because the customer didn’t have to do anything to earn it.
4. Win-back for lapsed customers
Got a list of customers who haven’t ordered in 90/180/365 days? Drop some credit into their accounts and send a simple “you’ve got $20 to spend” email. It lands harder than yet another discount code because it feels like something they already own.
How Stork Credit helps: Use Shopify Flow to trigger Store Credit to get applied to a customers account if they haven’t engaged with you for X days. You can also trigger a marketing campaign from Klaviyo or any marketing platform that also connects with Flow.
→ Here’s a template to get started.
5. VIP tier rewards
Reward your top customers with credit. Monthly, quarterly, on their birthday, whenever. Because it’s real dollar value — not confusing points — they actually feel rewarded.
You could even create a multi-tiered, Gold/Silver/Bronze type loyalty program that issues Store Credit directly to your customers (see this video). I’m not necessarily suggesting you should do this, but you can!
How Stork Credit Helps: When you create an automatic store credit promotion, you can easily assign it to any of the customer segments in your Shopify store (using native customer segments). Or use Shopify Flow to create advanced logic.
6. Product-specific promotions
“Buy anything from the new collection and get $15 back to spend later.” This is where Store Credit starts replacing conditional discount stacks and the rat’s nest of exclusions that come with them.
How Stork Credit helps: Product-triggered credit rules — pick a product or collection, set the reward, and it’s automated.
7. B2B account-level perks
This is a sleeper hit. Store Credit issued to a B2B company location is shared across every buyer at that location. Reward your wholesale customers with credit tied to order volume, a new product launch, or just to say cheers for a big year. It keeps them loyal at the account level, not just with one individual buyer.
8. The goodwill gesture
A delayed order, a damaged product, a customer having a rough week — Store Credit is a cleaner apology than a refund or a one-off code. They know they’ll be back, and so do you.
9. Referral rewards
“Refer a mate, get $20 credit when they make their first purchase.” Store Credit works beautifully as the referral reward because the referrer is already in your ecosystem — they just got a reason to spend again.
10. Bulk credit drops for campaigns
Running a competition, a PR stunt, a partnership, or just want to make your top 500 customers feel loved? Bulk import credit against a list and you’ve got an instant campaign with zero codes to manage.
11. Refunds with a bit extra
Obviously it’s. much better to refund a customer with Store Credit rather than putting the cash back onto their credit card. Refunding to store credit is easy in Shopify, but if you want to add additional logic, you can use Stork Credit’s Shopify Flow connector to create advanced rules.
In this example, we have given the user 110% of their order value back to them in store credit as a sweetener to encourage store credit instead of a direct refund:
The brilliant bit: it lives on the checkout
All of these plays share one thing — the customer doesn’t have to do anything special.
No code to enter. No widget to click. Their credit just appears as a payment method on the checkout alongside card, PayPal and everything else.
That means fewer abandoned carts, fewer “how do I use my reward” support tickets, and an experience that actually feels native to Shopify, because it is.
Getting started
If you want to see how this all works in practice, I’ve put together a few short demo videos that walk through setup:
Setting up a loyalty program with Store Credit → Watch the demo
Bulk importing Store Credit balances → Watch the demo
Creating your first Store Credit automation → Watch the demo
And if you haven’t already, have a listen to the podcast episode where Mat and I break down why we built Stork Credit and how Shopify Flow fits into all of this.
One last thing
Store Credit isn’t going to replace every discount, gift card or loyalty app overnight. But if you’re running any of the plays above with the old tools, you’re making life harder than it needs to be — for you and for your customers.
Give one of these a crack. Start with a one-off promotion, watch what happens to your repeat purchase rate, and go from there.
And if you build something clever with it, let me know. I’m always up for brainstorming on a good idea.