Monetizing Customer Data on Shopify

TIKI's solution to boosting revenue and solving the post-pandemic blues

Inflation. It’s something you require for your car's tires and the cool new tube you got for floating down the river with a Kyle’s Killer Lemonade in hand. When it comes to the economy, inflation is something that may send you into a frenzy when it comes to growing an ecommerce business and then maintaining profitability. So, let’s leave the inflation to pool toys and Reebok Pumps. Even when things are difficult, there’s always a way to make things a bit easier, and that is why we pioneers (cool band name) at TIKI have created our shiny new Shopify application—to make things easier on businesses by setting up a path to pocketing some extra revenue on top of direct sales from your store.

Well, how in the actual heck do I do that, cryptic blog writer? I’m glad you’ve asked.  Strap on your Pumps and join me on an adventure like no other: Getting Customers To Trade Your Business Their Data and Then Letting TIKI Sell That Data on Secondary Marketplaces and Then Letting TIKI Pay You When the Data is Sold So That You Have More Money Than You Did Before. The name for this adventure is a working title. Let us begin.

Adapting to Shifting Consumer Behavior and Economic Realities in Ecommerce

Ecommerce land sure is sending some mixed signals of late, ain’t it? After the onset of the pandemic, ecommerce growth was unprecedented as people locked down at home relied heavily on making purchases online. That growth stagnated as restrictions and lockdowns were lifted and people began figuring out how to live life “normally” again. In fact, at the beginning of 2023, consumers were 102% more concerned about inflation than they were about the coronavirus. While there was an explosion of web-based transactions following the pandemic, customers are becoming much more selective when it comes to what they purchase and who they are purchasing it from, and the price tag has a lot to do with it. In fact, over 7 in 10 (gotta love the ol’ fractional people stats) purchased from a direct competitor of their regular go-to brands between May 2021 and May 2022.

Why is this important? Well, for starters, loyalty is harder to maintain than ever. If you’ve spent years building up a reputable brand reputation, 2023’s inflation-impacted economy shows that effort can only take you so far. With wallets looking thinner, shopping around for the best deals has become a much more common practice. Secondarily, outside of the loyalty aspects, this means that your business could be that competitor that nets additional revenue from customers looking for a good deal. That is, if you’re indeed a business that is offering a good deal.

What’s more? Inflation makes the supply chain much more difficult to manage, meaning businesses may need to spend more than they can sustainably spend to maintain inventory. Consumers are rather cold-hearted when it comes to this. The Amazonification of the world economy has meant numerous things, but one of the most prominent is the normalization of the Violet Beauregard “I want an Oompa Loompa, NOW, Daddy!” sentiment. That’s right…customers simply aren’t going to wait for Oompa Loompas to come back into stock simply because you’ve historically been their go-to shop for all their Oompa Loompa needs. Nearly half of consumers (46%) will jump ship to a competitor if they have what they’re looking for in stock. To make matters better (or worse, depending on your social media and loyalty metrics), consumers don’t have to migrate from their favorite applications in order to be exposed to new products and alternatives to the brands they are used to purchasing from.

However, even getting exposure isn’t a surefire way to get people to purchase from your store. In a saturated market, giants like Amazon, Walmart and eBay are still a go-to given their inventory, convenience, and speed leading to lots of abandoned carts for those trying to contend with the perennial ecommerce titans.

Maintaining Ecommerce Loyalty During Tumultuous Times

The aftermath of the pandemic, ongoing lockdowns, supply chain upheavals, and rising borrowing costs have led to a surge in commodity prices, including the fuel required to ship products. Central banks' (damn you, Woodrow Wilson!!!) interest rate hikes have contributed to the highest inflation in decades. To cope, over 70% of global businesses are adapting pricing strategies, operational models, and growth approaches for sustained competitiveness.

For many, periodic price adjustments due to escalating costs are required. While some opt for quick fixes like slashing prices for short-term gains, the key lies in balancing immediate relief with long-term investment for stability. Central to this is nurturing customer loyalty, which can increase a customer's worth by up to 22 times. Loyal customers not only drive repeat purchases at higher rates (60-70% vs. 5-20% for new customers), they also weather price hikes better and act as advocates, sharing positive experiences. In a shifting economic landscape, leveraging customer loyalty emerges as a pivotal strategy for businesses not just to survive, but to thrive.

But how do we go about this whole loyalty thing when people are so quick to jump ship? The ability to price strategically, and offer discounts and coupons, including things like free shipping, can be major boons to a business and keep the experience for customers positive.

But what if its too costly for your business to price on a level with industry titans, or even similar-sized businesses in your industry? What if you want a stellar loyalty program or discount initiative, but can’t feasibly afford a model that will set you apart from competitors? For TIKI, these questions double as Batman Bat Signals, and we’re here to save Gotham.

The TIKI-fication of Ecommerce

Alright, so initially the pandemic was great for ecommerce, but after the world starting LARPing as normal again, ecommerce metrics took a dip, but then the numbers started to rise again in 2023 (mixed signals, like I said). Encouraging news, but competition is higher than ever, loyalty is harder to come by, wallets are tighter, the supply chain continues to be wonky, and expectations are for immediacy. Is there a way to add a surefire boost to revenue for a Shopify store, say, with an easy-to-use application created by the very company writing this blog? Well, I might not say surefire for potential legal reasons, but we indeed have something that just might do the trick.

At TIKI, we believe in bridging the gap between businesses and customers through transparent and rewarding experiences. Our upcoming Shopify app enables merchants to optimize their loyalty programs by offering data rewards to customers. What this means is, using coupons and discounts your store may already be using, TIKI allows businesses to offer said discounts in exchange for customers agreeing to let your business monetize their (deidentified, if you’d like!) receipt and demographic data.

TIKI then goes ahead, packages that data up, and sells it to data buyers who are eager to access high-quality, reliable data to drive their business decisions. What this means is all a Shopify store needs to do is install and activate the TIKI app, create a custom discount offer, and proceed with business as usual. TIKI takes care of all the complicated stuff like creating the legal agreement and sourcing potential data buyers. Once the data is sold, revenue goes right back into your pocket, making it so those once-unaffordable loyalty programs and pricing initiatives all of a sudden don’t seem so unaffordable after all.

A Very TIKI Sneak Preview

We’re putting the final touches on the 1.0 version of our Shopify app, but we can still show you how it works! Coupon/discount creation is nearly identical to native Shopify discounts. Here’s a preview of the TIKI version of coupon creation, which should look familiar.

Easy as pie. The offer created will look something like this template below:

You can also customize that sucker, and make it as pretty (or ugly) as you want! Change the offer image, the discount description and the color palette to match your branding and give your customers a solid understanding of the terms of the offer.

It really is as simple as that. Once the data starts flowing in, we can get to our growing network of buyers and get revenue back in your pocket. Increase revenue and loyalty at the same time? I sure would like to! And that’s why we’re building this easy-to-use application.

Once those final magic touches are put on the app, we can offer exclusive early access, so if this looks cool to you, go ahead and email me at shane@mytiki.com and tell me you’re interested!

Bonus!!!!

In addition to pocketing extra revenue from data sales, you’ll also get access to your own exclusive zero-party data lake. If you’ve got the skills and the know-how, you’ll be able to solidify your insights, make better business decisions, strengthen ROAS and more. We will be looking for feedback from our initial Shopify customers, and may build out easy ways for store owners to properly use and understand their own customers’ data, or maybe even the data of competitors in your industry. The great part of being an initial member is the amount of influence you’ll have on what we build next. In fact, me, blog writer, will personally be with you every step of the way for assistance and discussion on optimizing the product.

Stay tuned! :)

Learn more about TIKI.