Understanding How Points Work in Essential Loyalty

With Essential Loyalty, your customers earn points for every order and action you decide to reward. This article covers:

When points start counting
How customers earn, track, and redeem them
How to manually update or import point balances

🕐 When do customers start earning points?

Points are not assigned to past orders automatically.

Customers start earning points only after you install and activate the app. From that point on, we track their activity and apply the rules you’ve set under Points > Ways to Earn.

You can "Kill Switch" the application whenever needed from the application dashboard by disabling the Loyalty program; no points will be assigned to customers when you disable the program immediately.

If you uninstall and reinstall the app later, points will resume from the moment of reinstallation. Orders placed while the app was uninstalled won’t count.

💸 How do customers earn points?

You can reward points for different actions, like:

Placing an order (e.g. 10 points for every $1 or €1 spent)
Signing up for an account
Completing their first order
Optional: birthday, social follows, daily visits, etc.

You can enable or disable any earning rule at any time from your Loyalty admin, and manually update points for individual customers by editing the balance from the Customers tab directly.

🔎 How are points tracked?

Customers automatically collect points based on their order data and actions.

You can see each customer’s balance under the Customers tab
A full history of earned, spent, and adjusted points is available for each customer
Customers see their balance by opening the Floating Widget or Customer Account Page on your store

📥 Can I update points manually?

Yes! You can adjust points manually one-by-one in bulk by uploading a CSV file.

Go to:

Settings → CSV Imports → Add file

You can [Download Template] to format your file
Upload a CSV with customer emails and point balances
You’ll see a success/failure log after each upload
See example below 👇

This is perfect if you're switching from another loyalty app or want to run a one-time bonus campaign.

🎁 How do customers redeem points?

When customers have enough points, they’ll see rewards available inside the loyalty widget and customer account page:

They can claim rewards like discounts or free products
Once claimed, a discount code is created automatically and shown to them
Points are deducted immediately when a reward is claimed

They can use the discount at checkout like any regular Shopify code (unless another automatic discount is already applied — Shopify only allows one at a time).

✅ Summary

✅ Points start from installation, not from past orders (there is a "Kill Switch" button on the application dashboard that stops points acitivity)
✅ Customers earn points automatically based on your rules (you can edit individual customers' points balance from the Customers tab)
✅ You can also manually adjust or import points using a CSV file import that changes the customer's balance
✅ Customers redeem points through the floating widget or customer account page

Let us know if you have further questions. We’re happy to assist 💛