Shopify Discussions

djb6301 · ‎07-01-2019

I want to give my customers the option to receive store credit instead of a refund when they return an item. The store credit should go directly into their accounts and act as a store credit. Can this be done? My website requires you to make an account before a purchase so they will all have accounts linked to their email. Does Shopify allow you to do this or would I need to hire a developer?

Ragibh · ‎07-01-2019

Hi Djb,

Well you can use an app to do so, try looking at https://apps.shopify.com/rewardify that does exactly what you are wanting to do.

So with this app instead of actual refunds you would be able to provide store credits which could be redeemed with future purchases from the same customer both online as well as physical shop (this app integrates with Shopify POS as well)

I would recommend you review the app, install it and use it for free for 14 days, for more information I would recommend that you touch base with the app developers.

thanks

Ragib

Ragib Hussain
President | Primary Software Corp. | www.primarysoftware.com

Lara · ‎07-04-2019

Hi @djb6301

Lara here from Shopify!

From what I understand, you would like to give store credits to your customers. That is a lovely idea! However, there's no functionality yet on the store admin in giving store credits to customers, but I understand how having this feature available is important, and I'm sending your feedback along to our responsible team.

If you are on a Shopify Plan or higher, what I can suggest for you is issuing a free gift card to them on the amount of the refund. You can check our guide about issuing gift cards here. If you're not on a Shopify Plan or higher, you can definitely use apps such as Rewardify, Rise Ai or Fresh Credit to help you issue store credit to your customers.

Hope this helps! Please let me know if you find the options above not suiting on what you want to achieve.

All the best! Lara.

Lara | Equipe Shopify @ Shopify
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Nadav_Berger · ‎08-14-2019

Hi

Actually, there is a simple way to issue store credit on Shopify - you can us rise.ai.

Rise enables you to issue store credit directly to customers while segmentizing the reason for the analytics to keep a better accounting track.

For repeat customers, you will also be able to accumulate it directly to their account, creating a seamless experience that they don't even need to remember the code in.

Hope it helps 🙂

Tony39 · ‎05-05-2020

The app looks nice but is very, very expensive. I pay $99/mo for Shopify and the Rise.Ai plan we'd need is an additional $60/mo? This is the big problem with Shopify. They are missing so many core functionalities on their platform and the huge number of add-on apps required to make Shopify have basic functions that customers in the year 2020 expect increases the cost of Shopify by 3-4X. I currently pay more in aggregate for add-on apps than I do for Shopify itself. That's crazy. I'm sure Rise.Ai is nice, but I'd rather do a dozen manual returns each month and manually create discount codes for customers to use as "store credit" than pay $60/mo plus $.15/order. We did about 800 orders last month with only a dozen or so returns. At the current rates, Rise.Ai would cost $60 + $60 for the overage (400 x .$15) or $120!!! That's a cost to me of about $10 per return. In what universe would that make sense to any small business owner? The pricing is way way way too high for the value provided.

roehamptonorchi · ‎06-28-2020

Agree. Completely ridiculous to have to pay extra for an app for one feature that should be a core functionality of any store... a store credit. I needed it for ONE customer in 300+ orders..

NF_Designer · ‎02-09-2021

Agreed-y

Nixs · ‎06-11-2020

Is there a free version of any of these Apps?

PrettyLo · ‎11-30-2020

I wish Shopify would provide a free solution.

Tony39 · ‎11-30-2020

A gift card is not store credit. It’s a gift card with a redemption code. It’s not the same.

Holly99 · ‎12-01-2020

I agree. Also - giving a customer a gift card instead of a store credit - provides zero customer history.

violetsea · ‎12-18-2020

Shopify developers had lot of time to develop that spinny globe live view that ruined the original flat world map live view. They had lot of time to develop that horrible spinny globe feature but they did not have time to develop a core feature such as store credit? Worst service from shopify. what does it tell us? there is no other good platform out there to replace shopify and they have become abusive service provider as they don't listen to what their customers need.

Here is why store credit is not same as gift card. Let's say I set up " free shipping" for purchases more than $500. Just an assumption. So a customer purchases and let's say $200 goods come damaged. Let's just say. If you issue store credit then the way it should work is they have to order another $500 to get free shipping and then they can also add the credit of $200 and make the purchase of $500 and get $700 worth products. You can't do the same with gift card. They will buy for $300 and $200 gift card adds up just as purchase and qualifies the purchase for free shipping. As a shipper you will spend another $100 for shipping for $300 purchase.

Another flaw. so the $200 they paid tax for the damaged goods right? well when you issue gift card again there will be tax that as a seller you have to pay. There will be double tax. This is so messed up that the shopify won't put time in developing this core feature of store credit but will put time in developing horrible feature such as spinny grey globe live view which never works and which replaced a working flat world map. The previous world map live view showed all online customers but the spinny globe view won't show customers on the other side of the globe. well you have to spin it i guess. Absurd!

Shopify lack so many of the core features that is basic and needed. Surprisingly they are doing well (stock wise), well someone comes with strong platform will replace shopify in no second. Time will teach them a lesson.

Holly99 · ‎07-09-2020

My comment is in response to the the comment below:

Has there been any attention given to making it possible to issue a store credit to a customer?

I find in what I read Shopify uses the words refund & store credit interchangeably when in reality they are two VERY different things.

In July 2019 Lara from Shopify .... see below:

10 4 1

Hi @djb6301

Lara here from Shopify!

From what I understand, you would like to give store credits to your customers. That is a lovely idea! However, there's no functionality yet on the store admin in giving store credits to customers, but I understand how having this feature available is important, and I'm sending your feedback along to our responsible team.

OrbitDVD · ‎08-04-2020

I have been using Shopify for less than a month, and although I really like it, there are some key features missing that will hold me back from using it at my physical location. Buy/sell/trade is a large part of my business, and the inability to give credit is a major stumbling block here.

In just a few short weeks, I have been giving credit to a good amount of online customers. Instead of using Shopify, I am capturing their information on my store's POS, and Shopify misses out on the sales. This seems like such a simple fix to me, but maybe I am wrong.

Tony39 · ‎08-05-2020

We are most likely leaving Shopify. We've outgrown them. I don't see how
anyone but the smallest mom and pop shop could get by with the vast number
of missing features and the MASSIVE core application flaws regarding
customer account management, slooooowwww website performance, lack of
adequate locations support and reporting, poor inventory management tools,
poor pack and ship solutions, etc. I could spend thousands of dollars a
month to fix the issues in Shopify but even that kind of investment
couldn't fix their deeply flawed core product.

I gave them 4 years to catch up with us. All they have done in four years
is put more lipstick on a pig. 😞

jonathanOVRC · ‎08-29-2020

It's insane to me that I can't easily provide store credit to my customers without installing an expensive app. WTF? We recently migrated from Vend & Squarespace to Shopify online/POS in order to be more seamless as our online presence increased during the pandemic. Not having store credit capabilities (we allow customers to exchange running shoes w/in 30 days for a different shoe or store credit) is a HUGE miss. My wife and I recently took a trip out of town and I was shocked to find out we couldn't see how much cash vs cc sales we did from the desktop version. Again: WTF?

We're still on the 90 day trial - and even though we spent a bunch of labor hours moving over the Shopify, I'm not sure we can live with it on the pos side of things

Tony39 · ‎08-29-2020

Whatever labor hours you spent migrating will be astronomically higher if you stay on the platform. Keep shopping for a different solution. We’ve been waiting over 4 years for Shopify to fix MASSIVE shortcomings in their platform. Our requests are not even on their roadmap from what I can tell.

Our top two items are:

1). In store credit. This doesn’t exist and even with expensive third party apps, it’s a complete joke using “discount codes” to make this work. It doesn’t.

2). No customer table in the database. It doesn’t exist. It’s like Shopify doesn’t realize that customers are the core of our business, not our product inventory. Without customers, our products are worthless. Shopify simply scrapes customer names and emails from orders and “reports” that list to you when you go to the customer screen. Those customers do not exist in a database that can be updated...not really. I have some of my best customers that have 5+ accounts in Shopify because they switched email addresses over the years, accidentally typed “gamil” instead of “gmail” one time...and now they have a duplicate entry in Shopify. (I won’t call it an account, but Shopify doesn’t really have true customer accounts). I can’t merge this info or fix it. I have duplicate “entries” forever.

Issue 1 and 2 are related. Shopify can’t do store credit because they never designed their platform around a customer. They designed it around inventory and product sales (invoices).

This is a fundamental flaw in their platform that over 4 years of prodding, they have been unwilling to address. Shopify will fade into the annals of software history if they don’t step up and give their customers the most basic tools we need to serve OUR customers.

clbetzler · ‎01-17-2022

Hello!

I'm curious what you decided to do - did you stick with shopify or move back? We are currently using shopify but are considering a move or adding vend to help with inventory - would you reccomend vend?

Thank you.

Emily

Mostafa_Kamel · ‎01-19-2022

Hello,

I think until Shopify natively implements that into customers account, You can use an app to do so - Try looking at CreditsYard app, It does exactly what you are looking for.

It allows you to issue store credit to your customers that they can easily use on new purchases/orders - It works with Shopify POS as well.

Thanks

Tony39 · ‎01-19-2022

Based on the demo site, this is probably the best store credit app I've
seen. HOWEVER...Shopify's lack of an ability to combine duplicate
customer accounts will still plague any implementation of a store credit
solution. Not sure if this add-on allows you to transfer store credit from
one Shopify user to another. (Shopify does not have "accounts". They only
have users they scrape off transaction records.

FANFAVORITE · ‎09-08-2022

This is insane that it is not part of the core functionality. I left Big Commerce which runs circles around shopify on basic inclusions. I am not sure why shopify doesnt have this and why after 3 years from the questions being asked its not a part of the package.

Tony39 · ‎09-19-2022

Actually, there are tons of threads on this issue…many going back over 7+ years. 😉

Best thing to do is call and complain to a Guru on the telephone. I don’t think Shopify monitors/reads these forums.

plantgather · ‎07-09-2021

Tony, where did you move to?

Tony39 · ‎07-09-2021

My wife has a clothing boutique. We moved 100% of our online business to CommentSold. It has been a very good decision for us. Their system is built to scale with us and has been far superior to Shopify in every way. I wish I had moved over years earlier. We pack and ship over 100 packages a day on average using bar coded pick/pack sheets with integrated peel and stick shipping labels. A single employee can easily pick/pack/ship 30 packages per hour with precision.

We have a mobile app, website, many features included that Shopify doesn’t offer such as duplicate account merging, store credit, automated marketing emails, reports actually designed for someone who runs a real business, etc.

CommentSold is focused on the online boutique industry. If that’s not your business, it will probably not be a good fit. If you are an online boutique, there is no better platform at the moment.

Private message me if you have questions. I can get you a better rate and a sign up bonus though a referral program they offer, if you are interested.

Tony
Much Ado Boutique

Todd_Trimakas · ‎08-06-2021

Hi,

Yep, we aren't Shopify, but for $10/month you can use FreshCredit to give and manage up to 5k of your customers store credit. 100's of other Shopify stores have been happy with us for years now!

Thanks

Todd

ByteStand - Amazon to Shopify in one click

Sash · ‎11-19-2021

Do you have an alternative to Shopify? I would like to have an option once we're ready to move on as well. Thanks

CharlesMJr · ‎11-20-2021

I believe there are apps that can assist but our store is just getting off the ground and we have decided the cost of an app at this time is not justified. We want to see how many returns for store credit we have for the coming year and then make up our minds on how to proceed. We have developed a manual work around which is somewhat cumbersome, messes up the sales analysis which so far is not significantly impacting our reports, requires manual communications with customer vs using the automated notifications and requires additional entries on our books but feel we can live with that for now. What we do is do a return but send a manual email to the customer explaining the return process and that the refund will be made to a gift card vs allowing the standard Shopify notification go to the customer. Upon receipt of the products, we do a refund (to get them back into stock) but override the refund amount and make it zero and uncheck box to send the standard refund notice to customer. We have a manual email we send to the customer (instead of the standard Shopify refund notification) explaining the refund amount and communicating the refund will be made via gift card. We then go in an issue a gift card for free in the amount of the refund that would be made if crediting the original payment method and allow the gift card standard notification to go our to the customer. Definitely not ideal but works for us. The refund via gift card requires a manual journal entry in the books also.

butterflyersinc · ‎01-13-2022

We feel the same way. May be time to look elsewhere. Any ideas?

dirtyjane · ‎09-21-2020

Any word on when Shopify will allow us to issue a store credit without having to use a third-party app? I've been issuing Gift Cards but this skews my numbers as it looks like I've sold GC when I haven't.

Please advise when this will be available!

Tony39 · ‎09-21-2020

Even with a third party app, it’s not really store credit. It’s simply an overlay to manage “discount codes”. It’s a total mess and not worth the money. We are leaving the Shopify platform soon...

It’s designed for very small mom and pop shops that don’t do much business.

Neomi_av · ‎09-22-2020

Hi all! I'm Neomi from Rise.ai app,

We specialized in gift cards, loyalty, and refunds - all with our store credit solutions. using Rise, all of your customer credit will accumulate into one loyalty card they can use to shop in your store.

You can use our Refund system directly from you shopify admin.

This feature is available on all of Rise's plan

other solutions we have are:

an advanced gift card solution that includes a branded gift card, an option to send the gift card directly to the recipient and schedule it for the prefect time.
rewards flows - alawing you to reward customers for different trigers - like buy X get back Y and many more.
referrals.

you can read more about our solutions here

since use store credit and not points any customer can use his credit with an additional coupon code.

checkout our listing page and feel free to contact me at info@rise.ai

Tony39 · ‎09-22-2020

This is still not true store credit. It is simply a gift-card overlay in Shopify that continues to leverage Shopify’s “discount code” feature. The solution is also not cost effective at all for high volume Shopify stores.

There is no way to have true store credit with Shopify because Shopify, at its core, is transaction focused, not customer focused. This is why we are leaving Shopify. My business has succeeded because I’ve been customer focused, not transactional focused. Shopify is not congruent with our business. Shopify’s customer “list” is simply a rake-off of all emails ever used on any Shopify transaction. Some of my best customers have accidentally created “duplicate” accounts over the years by mistyping their email address as checkout. There is no way to fix this in Shopify...no way to combine the “accounts” because there is no customer database/table. There are only transactions. Since one single transaction had an incorrect email address used...that “customer” exists as a duplicate forever.

Shopify is broken at its core. Third party apps (no offense) are lipstick on a pig.

MAE333 · ‎10-15-2020

Are we still waiting for this functionality? I have been trying to find a work around that doesn't ding my sales $100 and cost me even more money in taxes by exaggerating the amount of sales we have.

Customer purchased $100 worth of items, items were "stolen". Instead of refunding I want to issue store credit as a compromise. My accounting thinks I have $100 in the bank.

Now I issue $100 gift card. My accounting thinks I have $200 in the bank.

I can't refund or cancel her original order online to zero that out and make it even somehow because that will trigger actual cash going back to her method of payment.

I can issue her a $100 discount but she needs to use it all at once which complicates matters.

No to the additional app for one occurrence out of 1,000

dirtyjane · ‎10-15-2020

Agree. This is a very basic functionality to me. Can't wait to see when Shopify fixes this. I mean, how many external apps are we expected to pay for?

Tony39 · ‎10-15-2020

They cannot fix this unless they radically alter their core database/table structure and coding. It would be open heart surgery for them to do so.

If they had initially designed their app to be more customer-centric vs transaction centric, this wouldn’t be a problem. With no customer table, you can’t have a field to track account balances. Without the ability to merge duplicate customer accounts, it would be a nightmare to try to implement store credit. Shopify has core design flaws that are limiting this “basic” functionality. It’s like asking someone without any arms to “wave” at you. It’s not that they are ignoring the request. They just lack the ability to do it.

MAE333 · ‎10-17-2020

Then shopify should develop an app to do it, like the ones they suggest
store owners add and pay for, but offer it free.

Tony39 · ‎10-17-2020

No app can do it. That’s the problem. Apps can only work with “discount codes”....which is a very un-elegant implementation of a customer credit solution. It’s ugly. Apps can’t fix the core flaw in Shopify’s design...the issue that they did not create a customer table to store customer data. They just search transaction history and print a report of every unique email address (that is their main customer identifier...even if some of your real life customers have multiple emails addresses...Shopify treats each address as a unique person. It’s a mess.

They need a customer table (database).

Holly99 · ‎10-19-2020

They are now pitching us to use Shopify in our brick & Mortar...Customer service is paramount...and without being able to do store credits & track a customer's history we cannot give the service our customer's know & love.

Irism · ‎02-12-2021

hi,

Same problem here. May I ask which platform you consider leaving shopify for?

Tony39 · ‎02-12-2021

So...no system out there will be perfect. We ended up choosing to go with a solution that is specialized for our industry (retail clothing sales).

We moved to 100% CommentSold. They provide a mobile app, web store and highly efficient pack and ship/warehouse management solution. One person can pack and ship a package in under a minute. It’s all barcode based.

They do not offer point of sale. So, if you have brick and mortar, this solution will not work. Also, the website is bare-bones and lacks a lot of features Shopify has. However, we are happy that we made the change. Store credit works great. They don’t have a return label solution, so that’s a bummer...but we normally don’t pay for customer returns unless there is a defect.

CommentSold is good for boutiques selling clothes. If that’s not you, perhaps check out BigCommerce. If you are outgrowing or are getting tired of Shopify’s lack of core features, take a look at BC.

good luck.

Tony39 · ‎04-15-2023

CommentSold now has a Point of Sale and a new website/content management system that rivals Shopify. Since leaving Shopify, we’ve had 1000% revenue growth and are now a multi-million dollar business. I’m confident we would have struggled to hit our growth targets on Shopify’s clunky platform. I don’t miss Shopify at all.

jonathanOVRC · ‎02-12-2021

We're using Vend for our brick and mortar POS and Shopify for online sales (for now). We'll probably move that to Fitted, however, which is specific to the running industry right now as far as I know.

Shopify's POS is worthless for what we do, even though the online solution isn't bad

Tony39 · ‎02-12-2021

Agree. Shopify online return works well...

It’s so tough to find a solution that does everything.

We do a lot of live selling on social media platforms and CommentSold is great for that.

If you are doing more standard SEO and Pixel/AdWords advertising, Shopify is set up better for that.

I’ve heard BigCommerce is a good platform but haven’t done much more than a surface look at them...

Cara_ByteStand · ‎10-30-2020

Hello djb & all!

There is a app called Fresh Credit that may help. Fresh Credit enables store owners to give store credit to their customers for any reason, at any time, and in any amount. They have a 7 day free trial and plans start at $10 for 5k customers or less. It is very simple and easy to use!

Below are some resoures for you that include videos, FAQ's, and more information about our apps!
FAQ's - www.bytestand.com
How to use ByteStand-Import Video - https://youtu.be/yef2R2iPsTg
How to use FBA Shipping Video - https://youtu.be/D9nfPLafJDI
How to use Fresh Credit Video - https://youtu.be/WEac3HKOQ_g

BarryVG · ‎05-26-2021

If a brick & mortar store has migrated to Shopify & then has to use their POS to continue "in-store" sales, they can easily be migrating MORE than 5,000 customers.

Mostafa_Kamel · ‎02-25-2021

Hello everyone,

We just released a new app that could help solve this problem by providing you a way to offer store credit to your customers and customers can easily redeem the credit on new purchases/orders using a fully customizable widgets.

Also you can moderate and track your customers store credit activity and know how much credit is spent and how much is pending.

Please feel free to check it and happy to hear your thoughts.

https://apps.shopify.com/my-store-credit

Thanks

dirtyjane · ‎02-25-2021

@Mostafa_Kamel thanks for sharing. It looks interesting. How long will it be free and when it's no longer free what will the monthly fee be? The issue most of us have here is that credits are something that should be built into the Shopify platform.

Offering gift cards for store credits severely screws up sales reporting. But we all pay far too much for external apps that should be part of the basic Shopify plan.

Thanks,

Amy

Holly99 · ‎02-25-2021

I absolutely agree that Shopify should have the Store Credit built in. Retail sales - no matter in a brick & mortar or online - always have returns - it is the nature of the business.

It is perplexing that Shopify has not built store credits into the software.

violetsea · ‎02-25-2021

Still No store credit feature. Shopify is horrible! They made the "live View" Also horrible with a spinny globe. I regret opening my shop via shopify to be honest. Just stuck. I have Rewardify app and it doesn't work most of the time. It is embarrassing when customers let us know they don';t see a store credit even after we have issued a store credit via rewardify.

Rewardify sucks big time same like shopify.

VigneshSivan · ‎03-02-2021

Up until recently, the only option to provide a Shopify store credit was through the use of discount codes. Discount codes are super simple to set up and definitely have their place in the flow of your online store.

A discount code is like a passkey offered to customers to reduce the price of an order. The customer enters the discount code at checkout and the discount is automatically applied. With Shopify, you can offer fixed value, percentage, or shipping discounts in your store. You can set an expiration date on the code, a minimum order amount, and the number of times the code can be used.

However, when offering store credit on Shopify with discount codes, there are quite a few unappetizing downsides:

There’s no way for shoppers to maintain a balance. If you give a shopper $50 off through a discount code but they only want to use $20 today, they lose the remaining balance on their discount code.
Basic discount codes can only be used once. After that the code expires and the customer is no longer able to use it.
Multiple use discount codes can cause even bigger problems. If you offer a multiple use discount code for $50, the shopper could receive a $50 credit on every order they place. So your $50 store credit could blow up into $500 or more worth of store credit.
With discount codes the user has to enter in a typically long random code and there is no stored value, its just a percent or dollar amount off.

What about gift cards? Gift cards are another form of payment that can be used for store credit and redeemed on your store. Once you load the store credit money onto the gift card, the customer will receive an email with a link to redeem it at a time of their choosing. This ensures the customer will return to your store to spend that money, but there are a couple of issues with gift cards:

Gift cards are typically only available on Shopify’s Advanced Plan ($79/month). This has been temporarily suspended due to COVID-19, but could go back into place any day.
Gift card purchases are counted as revenue even though they’re actually refunds. That could create a nightmare for your accounting.

Gift cards are a better option than discount codes, but they still pose issues that you’ll need to account for. Learn more about how to offer a Shopify store credit.

CharlesMJr · ‎04-04-2021

I read this thread about store credits with a lot of interest. We want to issue either store credit or gift card for refunds that are the customers arbitrary decision to return products vs refunding to the original payment method. We are an on-line store and thus do not use Shopify POS which I understand offers some kind of store credit functionality, although after reading this thread it does not sound like it is very good option. I also know that Shopify will only issue refunds to the original payment method. So it seems to me that we are going to have to develop a workaround process for when we want to issue refund via gift card vs against the original payment method.

My questions is this - does anyone have a good manual work around process for making some refunds to gift cards vs the original payment method? I have thought of a few but possible ways involving issuing a free gift card in the amount of the refund to the customer but they are very manual and messy and I have no doubt will result in adjusting entries being required in the accounting records. Any and all suggestions appreciated.

Tony39 · ‎02-16-2022

Thank you for your kind response. However, I do not believe anyone is “confused” about the difference between a store credit and a gift card. 🙂

The problem we have with Shopify is our inability to clean up duplicate accounts. This makes any kind of store credit solution difficult to manage. The same thing goes with customer loyalty programs. When I have so many valuable customers that have 4-5 accounts in Shopify…it’s a nightmare.

We all understand the difference between store credit and gift cards. I hope you can understand the core issue with Shopify lacking customer record management. (See my many prior posts on this). Thank you!

brettski_tc · ‎06-02-2022

My though on a solution for this is to provide a discount for the amount on any item in the store. It seems to handle a "credit". Other than no showing up on their account and them not being able to apply another discount code, is there a reason this shouldn't be used? Something I may not be thinking of?

Thank you all.