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Loyalty at the point of purchase, and the checkout work that has missed it
By Zsuzsa Kecsmar
eCommerce retailers often try to make the checkout process faster and easier by offering multiple payment options and reducing the number of steps. This focus comes from understanding that when checkout is complicated, customers abandon their carts. However, many retailers overlook the importance of customer loyalty.
For many shoppers, loyalty impacts their buying choices. They want to see information about their rewards and how these rewards can add value to their purchases. When this information is hard to find at checkout, it creates friction that undermines efforts to simplify the process. So the opportunity isn't just to make the loyalty programme visible, but to make it a key part of the eCommerce transaction.
Loyalty grew up somewhere else in the stack
Many retail loyalty programmes were created as separate systems. This meant that customers earned points during store hours, but those points were processed in batches overnight. As a result, these loyalty programme focused more on reporting and creating campaign lists than on enabling real-time interaction at the point of purchase. This separation made it hard for customers to check their points during checkout.
Because the loyalty system works independently and settles points at night, it cannot quickly answer balance questions at the point of sale. This often leads customers to redeem their points in a separate process after completing their purchase. While the sales system knows what customers are buying, the loyalty system knows what rewards are available. However, if these two systems cannot communicate in real time, customers must figure things out on their own. This might involve opening extra apps or even deciding not to use their rewards at all.
What redemption inside the checkout demands
Integrating a spendable balance display into the payment interface may seem like a minor development task, but it requires several underlying components that older systems often lack.
A read path fast enough to sit in the critical rendering path of the checkout. If the balance call is slower than the rest of the page, it either gets dropped or it slows every shopper down.
Reservation logic, so points committed to an order in progress cannot be spent again in another session or on another device.
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