Store Credit

[djb6301]

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? 

[Tony39]

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]

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

[Sash]

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]

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]

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

[clbetzler]

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]

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]

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.

[Tony39]

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]

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.

[GTG2019]

We offer a coupon code in the amount that the credit would be, it can be tailored for the individual customers, usages, items etc..

I agree with the other posters here, that there should have already been a built in mechanism for this as it only makes sense. 

[FANFAVORITE]

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]

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.