I recently got a feature request from a user of Order Automator app to be able to automatically tag customers when they left a tip in Shopify.

This got me thinking of some ideas to:

  • Reward cool customers
  • Generate a new revenue stream
  • Generate a staff profit sharing model

Reward Cool Customers

Getting new customers is hard, getting repeat customers is less hard but still tough.

I’ve found that by giving incentives (a discount code after leaving a review for your product, or $5 off their next order if they refer a customer) can increase return customer rate significantly.

If you don’t track your return customer rate, go to Analytics > Dashboard in your Shopify admin and look for “Returning customer rate”. This is a key metric because returning customers usually cost less per conversion.

Another way to incentivize is to reward customers that do cool stuff like leave a tip or share a post of your product on social media. Put yourself in a customer’s shoes and imagine if a brand reached out to you personally after tagging them in a post and offered a 20% off discount on their next purchase, as a thank you for sharing… Nice right?

Generate a new revenu stream

We’ve seen people use tipping as a way to generate additional revenue for their store.

We built the app Tip Cup so have insider insight into this.

You’d be surprised how many people message us (and some in the reviews :D) saying they set up a tip option with our app and it paid for itself many times over by bringing in more revenue via tips.

This won’t work for every brand, but if you have a small business, personalized brand, mission focused business, or are in an industry that commonly accepts tips, giving the option to tip will likely yield some results in the form of generous customers that want to support your brand.

You could also use “tips” to donate to a cause, either outright or as a % of the tips.

Generate a staff profit sharing model

In place of company revenue you can use tipping as a way to give staff bonuses. One idea is to include a tip widget on your site with some messaging that tips get split up amongst the staff.

Without a team a company store does not exist. This could be a fun way to help hookup your team with a little extra shared side cash for their hard work.

How to set up tipping

There are 2 ways to set up tips.

1. Use the native Shopify checkout tips feature.

2. Use the Tip Cup app.

The difference is Shopify’s native tip feature works in checkout and is compatible with Shopify payments like credit card, while Tip Cup collects tips before checkout (product page, cart page, etc) and is compatible with 3rd party payment providers (Apple Pay, PayPal, etc).

If you’re collecting tips, keep track of them by tagging the orders and customers. With your customers tagged, you can then export those customers into an email list and send them a special discount code for being so cool.

If you do high order volume or do not review every order, you can automate the process with Order Automator. This is an app I created to save store owners and staff time by automating various tasks like tagging, fulfillment, and fraudulent order notifications.

Tipping might not be for everyone but if you’ve never tried it consider giving it a go to see if you can increase your connection with your customers while helping grow your brand and giving more smiles to your staff.