Electronics
·
Enterprise
How AC Infinity turned loyalty into a reason to buy direct
30%
growth in repeat purchase rate
30%
growth in repeat purchase rate
30%
growth in repeat purchase rate
30%
growth in repeat purchase rate
93%
share of active customers enrolled
93%
share of active customers enrolled
93%
share of active customers enrolled
93%
share of active customers enrolled
3x
return-to-buy frequency, redeemers vs. non-redeemers
3x
return-to-buy frequency, redeemers vs. non-redeemers
3x
return-to-buy frequency, redeemers vs. non-redeemers
We've definitely seen customer retention increase. We specifically wanted to reward customers who purchase directly rather than through third-party platforms, and we've seen an increase in customers choosing to buy direct, even when it means waiting a bit longer for shipping versus getting something next-day from a marketplace.
Drew Moegling
Director of Marketing, AC Infinity
We've definitely seen customer retention increase. We specifically wanted to reward customers who purchase directly rather than through third-party platforms, and we've seen an increase in customers choosing to buy direct, even when it means waiting a bit longer for shipping versus getting something next-day from a marketplace.
Drew Moegling
Director of Marketing, AC Infinity
AC Infinity is a smart environmental controls merchant for indoor growers
Industry
Electronics
Platfrom
BigCommerce
Merchant Size
Enterprise
Smile Features
Points
Custom Activities
Analytics
Integrations
Region
North America
AC Infinity's program is a model for loyalty built as a genuine give-back rather than a discount engine. The team engineered a premium, on-brand rewards experience, ran it with minimal operational overhead, and used it to move measurable volume from third-party marketplaces to direct. As one of the most recognized names in indoor growing, AC Infinity needed a platform that could match its standards for quality and scale with its order volume, which is exactly why it moved from Smile's Growth plan to Plus.
Nearly two years in, the partnership keeps compounding. Smaller requests have already shipped, larger ideas like customer-initiated points exchanges are helping steer the roadmap, and the team is now weighing its next moves: a return to VIP tiers with fairer thresholds, deeper referrals, and earning points on marketplace purchases.
The Story
From one-off requests to a structured rewards program
AC Infinity creates smart environmental control solutions across home and smart home, audio/video, server racks and server rooms, and home theatre systems. A large part of the business is environmental controls for growing spaces and home gardening, including grow tents and a full range of gear built for that market.
Its customer base is a knowledgeable, passionate community of indoor growers and hydroponic enthusiasts who love sharing their highly configurable setups. Those products, especially on the home gardening side, can be a real investment, and customers had long asked to represent the brand through T-shirts, banners, flags, and stickers. Rather than field one-off notes on orders asking for stickers, AC Infinity wanted a structured way to give back.
The Challenge
Direct orders needed a reason to beat the marketplace
AC Infinity isn't a merchandise company, and the team was deliberate that loyalty should never feel like a sales tactic. That set a high bar. The value of points needed to be genuinely justified, closer to the 3 to 5% cash back of a good credit card than a gimmick, which meant the rewards themselves had to be worth earning.
The program also had to reward the right behavior. Like most ecommerce businesses today, the majority of AC Infinity's orders come through third-party marketplaces, but direct orders benefit the business far more. Loyalty needed to nudge customers toward buying direct without cheapening the shopping experience, and it had to scale without adding marketing headcount.
The Solution
Points, premium merchandise, and rewards worth earning
AC Infinity built its program on Smile around points and genuinely premium merchandise. The team invested real time and money so the rewards would never feel cheap or generic: hats are hand-stitched, flags are hand-sewn, and the water bottle isn't a standard bottle but a UV purification bottle. Alongside stickers, T-shirts, and keychains, every item is meant to reflect the brand's focus on innovation rather than read as a giveaway.
We didn't want this to feel like a sales tactic. We wanted the value of the points to be genuinely justified, similar to how most credit cards offer 3 to 5% cash back, so we invested real time and money making sure the merchandise wasn't cheap or generic.
Drew Moegling
Director of Marketing, AC Infinity
Points also convert to store credit and to vouchers from a partner brand, a seed company for cannabis growers. AC Infinity can't sell seeds itself, but customers who purchase a plant grow kit receive a voucher worth $50 to $150 in partner store credit. A customer might earn 1,000 points on a $1,000 grow kit and redeem $50 off seeds. The rollout was intentionally soft: selective widget placement to protect the customer experience, announced through social media and influencer partners, and surfaced on checkout confirmation pages so customers discover it naturally.
Custom activities extend the program beyond purchases. AC Infinity rewards Yotpo reviews and Instagram engagement, and reviews in particular make products noticeably stronger: shoppers are far more likely to buy an item with 50 to 70+ reviews than one with a handful. The program also dovetails with affiliate marketing. Instead of affiliates spending their own money on products, AC Infinity grants them monthly points to use for giveaways and to pull new products, based on their performance.
Infinity Club launcher panel
What the program delivered:
Premium, on-brand rewards: hand-stitched hats, hand-sewn flags, and UV-purification water bottles instead of generic swag
Partner vouchers: $50 to $150 in seed-company store credit for grow-kit buyers, plus store-credit redemption
Direct-order incentive: points reward customers who buy direct rather than through third-party marketplaces
Custom activities: Yotpo reviews and Instagram engagement that strengthen product pages and reward the community
Affiliate fuel and low-maintenance ops: monthly points power affiliate giveaways while the program runs on minimal bandwidth
The Results
Redeemers spend 4x more and return 3x more often
AC Infinity's program reaches nearly its entire active customer base, with a 93% membership rate that sits above the Smile benchmark for comparable merchants. Engagement is just as strong: a 30% redemption rate, also above the Smile average, means points are actively earned and spent rather than accumulating unused.
More importantly, the program is shifting behavior in the direction the business cares about. More customers are choosing to buy direct even when it means waiting longer than next-day marketplace shipping, moving revenue off third-party platforms and onto AC Infinity's own storefront. On the operations side, one-off requests for free merchandise have dropped now that customers have a structured way to earn it.
The gap between casual shoppers and engaged members is where the program earns its keep. Customers who actively redeem points spend roughly 4x as much each year and return to buy about 3x as often as those who don't, turning the most engaged customers into the most valuable ones.
Day-to-day, the program runs with low operational overhead. Access is governed and limited to the marketing team, and once the initial setup was dialed in the program scales without added headcount, generating only a small volume of customer-service requests. The team runs transaction and redemption reports mid-month and at month-end to watch for abuse and fine-tune reward pricing when an item isn't moving, and a custom script controls widget visibility automatically as new products launch.
30%
redemption rate, above average across similar loyalty programs
4x
annual spend among point redeemers vs non-redeemers
30%
redemption rate, above average across similar loyalty programs
4x
annual spend among point redeemers vs non-redeemers
Community & Reviews
A passionate community that shows up
AC Infinity's customers are dedicated indoor growers and hydroponic hobbyists who love sharing their configurable setups. Custom activities reward reviews and Instagram posts, and it's working: products with 50 to 70+ reviews convert far better than those with a handful. The most common feedback the team hears is customers asking why their setup wasn't reshared.
Why Smile.io
The platform behind AC Infinity's program
Smile.io powers loyalty for over 100,000 commerce brands worldwide, including high-growth and enterprise merchants. The platform is engineered for scale, with the integrations, custom activities, and analytics depth required to compound loyalty revenue program-over-program.
AC Infinity is a smart environmental controls merchant for indoor growers
Industry
Electronics
Platfrom
BigCommerce
Merchant Size
Enterprise
Smile Features
Points
Custom Activities
Analytics
Integrations
Region
North America
AC Infinity's program is a model for loyalty built as a genuine give-back rather than a discount engine. The team engineered a premium, on-brand rewards experience, ran it with minimal operational overhead, and used it to move measurable volume from third-party marketplaces to direct. As one of the most recognized names in indoor growing, AC Infinity needed a platform that could match its standards for quality and scale with its order volume, which is exactly why it moved from Smile's Growth plan to Plus.
Nearly two years in, the partnership keeps compounding. Smaller requests have already shipped, larger ideas like customer-initiated points exchanges are helping steer the roadmap, and the team is now weighing its next moves: a return to VIP tiers with fairer thresholds, deeper referrals, and earning points on marketplace purchases.
The Story
From one-off requests to a structured rewards program
AC Infinity creates smart environmental control solutions across home and smart home, audio/video, server racks and server rooms, and home theatre systems. A large part of the business is environmental controls for growing spaces and home gardening, including grow tents and a full range of gear built for that market.
Its customer base is a knowledgeable, passionate community of indoor growers and hydroponic enthusiasts who love sharing their highly configurable setups. Those products, especially on the home gardening side, can be a real investment, and customers had long asked to represent the brand through T-shirts, banners, flags, and stickers. Rather than field one-off notes on orders asking for stickers, AC Infinity wanted a structured way to give back.
The Challenge
Direct orders needed a reason to beat the marketplace
AC Infinity isn't a merchandise company, and the team was deliberate that loyalty should never feel like a sales tactic. That set a high bar. The value of points needed to be genuinely justified, closer to the 3 to 5% cash back of a good credit card than a gimmick, which meant the rewards themselves had to be worth earning.
The program also had to reward the right behavior. Like most ecommerce businesses today, the majority of AC Infinity's orders come through third-party marketplaces, but direct orders benefit the business far more. Loyalty needed to nudge customers toward buying direct without cheapening the shopping experience, and it had to scale without adding marketing headcount.
The Solution
Points, premium merchandise, and rewards worth earning
AC Infinity built its program on Smile around points and genuinely premium merchandise. The team invested real time and money so the rewards would never feel cheap or generic: hats are hand-stitched, flags are hand-sewn, and the water bottle isn't a standard bottle but a UV purification bottle. Alongside stickers, T-shirts, and keychains, every item is meant to reflect the brand's focus on innovation rather than read as a giveaway.
We didn't want this to feel like a sales tactic. We wanted the value of the points to be genuinely justified, similar to how most credit cards offer 3 to 5% cash back, so we invested real time and money making sure the merchandise wasn't cheap or generic.
Drew Moegling
Director of Marketing, AC Infinity
Points also convert to store credit and to vouchers from a partner brand, a seed company for cannabis growers. AC Infinity can't sell seeds itself, but customers who purchase a plant grow kit receive a voucher worth $50 to $150 in partner store credit. A customer might earn 1,000 points on a $1,000 grow kit and redeem $50 off seeds. The rollout was intentionally soft: selective widget placement to protect the customer experience, announced through social media and influencer partners, and surfaced on checkout confirmation pages so customers discover it naturally.
Custom activities extend the program beyond purchases. AC Infinity rewards Yotpo reviews and Instagram engagement, and reviews in particular make products noticeably stronger: shoppers are far more likely to buy an item with 50 to 70+ reviews than one with a handful. The program also dovetails with affiliate marketing. Instead of affiliates spending their own money on products, AC Infinity grants them monthly points to use for giveaways and to pull new products, based on their performance.
Infinity Club launcher panel
What the program delivered:
Premium, on-brand rewards: hand-stitched hats, hand-sewn flags, and UV-purification water bottles instead of generic swag
Partner vouchers: $50 to $150 in seed-company store credit for grow-kit buyers, plus store-credit redemption
Direct-order incentive: points reward customers who buy direct rather than through third-party marketplaces
Custom activities: Yotpo reviews and Instagram engagement that strengthen product pages and reward the community
Affiliate fuel and low-maintenance ops: monthly points power affiliate giveaways while the program runs on minimal bandwidth
The Results
Redeemers spend 4x more and return 3x more often
AC Infinity's program reaches nearly its entire active customer base, with a 93% membership rate that sits above the Smile benchmark for comparable merchants. Engagement is just as strong: a 30% redemption rate, also above the Smile average, means points are actively earned and spent rather than accumulating unused.
More importantly, the program is shifting behavior in the direction the business cares about. More customers are choosing to buy direct even when it means waiting longer than next-day marketplace shipping, moving revenue off third-party platforms and onto AC Infinity's own storefront. On the operations side, one-off requests for free merchandise have dropped now that customers have a structured way to earn it.
The gap between casual shoppers and engaged members is where the program earns its keep. Customers who actively redeem points spend roughly 4x as much each year and return to buy about 3x as often as those who don't, turning the most engaged customers into the most valuable ones.
Day-to-day, the program runs with low operational overhead. Access is governed and limited to the marketing team, and once the initial setup was dialed in the program scales without added headcount, generating only a small volume of customer-service requests. The team runs transaction and redemption reports mid-month and at month-end to watch for abuse and fine-tune reward pricing when an item isn't moving, and a custom script controls widget visibility automatically as new products launch.
30%
redemption rate, above average across similar loyalty programs
4x
annual spend among point redeemers vs non-redeemers
Community & Reviews
A passionate community that shows up
AC Infinity's customers are dedicated indoor growers and hydroponic hobbyists who love sharing their configurable setups. Custom activities reward reviews and Instagram posts, and it's working: products with 50 to 70+ reviews convert far better than those with a handful. The most common feedback the team hears is customers asking why their setup wasn't reshared.
Why Smile.io
The platform behind AC Infinity's program
Smile.io powers loyalty for over 100,000 commerce brands worldwide, including high-growth and enterprise merchants. The platform is engineered for scale, with the integrations, custom activities, and analytics depth required to compound loyalty revenue program-over-program.
AC Infinity is a smart environmental controls merchant for indoor growers
Industry
Electronics
Merchant Size
Enterprise
Region
North America
Platfrom
BigCommerce
Smile Features
Points
Custom Activities
Analytics
Integrations
AC Infinity's program is a model for loyalty built as a genuine give-back rather than a discount engine. The team engineered a premium, on-brand rewards experience, ran it with minimal operational overhead, and used it to move measurable volume from third-party marketplaces to direct. As one of the most recognized names in indoor growing, AC Infinity needed a platform that could match its standards for quality and scale with its order volume, which is exactly why it moved from Smile's Growth plan to Plus.
Nearly two years in, the partnership keeps compounding. Smaller requests have already shipped, larger ideas like customer-initiated points exchanges are helping steer the roadmap, and the team is now weighing its next moves: a return to VIP tiers with fairer thresholds, deeper referrals, and earning points on marketplace purchases.
The Story
From one-off requests to a structured rewards program
AC Infinity creates smart environmental control solutions across home and smart home, audio/video, server racks and server rooms, and home theatre systems. A large part of the business is environmental controls for growing spaces and home gardening, including grow tents and a full range of gear built for that market.
Its customer base is a knowledgeable, passionate community of indoor growers and hydroponic enthusiasts who love sharing their highly configurable setups. Those products, especially on the home gardening side, can be a real investment, and customers had long asked to represent the brand through T-shirts, banners, flags, and stickers. Rather than field one-off notes on orders asking for stickers, AC Infinity wanted a structured way to give back.
The Challenge
Direct orders needed a reason to beat the marketplace
AC Infinity isn't a merchandise company, and the team was deliberate that loyalty should never feel like a sales tactic. That set a high bar. The value of points needed to be genuinely justified, closer to the 3 to 5% cash back of a good credit card than a gimmick, which meant the rewards themselves had to be worth earning.
The program also had to reward the right behavior. Like most ecommerce businesses today, the majority of AC Infinity's orders come through third-party marketplaces, but direct orders benefit the business far more. Loyalty needed to nudge customers toward buying direct without cheapening the shopping experience, and it had to scale without adding marketing headcount.
The Solution
Points, premium merchandise, and rewards worth earning
AC Infinity built its program on Smile around points and genuinely premium merchandise. The team invested real time and money so the rewards would never feel cheap or generic: hats are hand-stitched, flags are hand-sewn, and the water bottle isn't a standard bottle but a UV purification bottle. Alongside stickers, T-shirts, and keychains, every item is meant to reflect the brand's focus on innovation rather than read as a giveaway.
We didn't want this to feel like a sales tactic. We wanted the value of the points to be genuinely justified, similar to how most credit cards offer 3 to 5% cash back, so we invested real time and money making sure the merchandise wasn't cheap or generic.
Drew Moegling
Director of Marketing, AC Infinity
Points also convert to store credit and to vouchers from a partner brand, a seed company for cannabis growers. AC Infinity can't sell seeds itself, but customers who purchase a plant grow kit receive a voucher worth $50 to $150 in partner store credit. A customer might earn 1,000 points on a $1,000 grow kit and redeem $50 off seeds. The rollout was intentionally soft: selective widget placement to protect the customer experience, announced through social media and influencer partners, and surfaced on checkout confirmation pages so customers discover it naturally.
Custom activities extend the program beyond purchases. AC Infinity rewards Yotpo reviews and Instagram engagement, and reviews in particular make products noticeably stronger: shoppers are far more likely to buy an item with 50 to 70+ reviews than one with a handful. The program also dovetails with affiliate marketing. Instead of affiliates spending their own money on products, AC Infinity grants them monthly points to use for giveaways and to pull new products, based on their performance.
Infinity Club launcher panel
What the program delivered:
Premium, on-brand rewards: hand-stitched hats, hand-sewn flags, and UV-purification water bottles instead of generic swag
Partner vouchers: $50 to $150 in seed-company store credit for grow-kit buyers, plus store-credit redemption
Direct-order incentive: points reward customers who buy direct rather than through third-party marketplaces
Custom activities: Yotpo reviews and Instagram engagement that strengthen product pages and reward the community
Affiliate fuel and low-maintenance ops: monthly points power affiliate giveaways while the program runs on minimal bandwidth
The Results
Redeemers spend 4x more and return 3x more often
AC Infinity's program reaches nearly its entire active customer base, with a 93% membership rate that sits above the Smile benchmark for comparable merchants. Engagement is just as strong: a 30% redemption rate, also above the Smile average, means points are actively earned and spent rather than accumulating unused.
More importantly, the program is shifting behavior in the direction the business cares about. More customers are choosing to buy direct even when it means waiting longer than next-day marketplace shipping, moving revenue off third-party platforms and onto AC Infinity's own storefront. On the operations side, one-off requests for free merchandise have dropped now that customers have a structured way to earn it.
The gap between casual shoppers and engaged members is where the program earns its keep. Customers who actively redeem points spend roughly 4x as much each year and return to buy about 3x as often as those who don't, turning the most engaged customers into the most valuable ones.
Day-to-day, the program runs with low operational overhead. Access is governed and limited to the marketing team, and once the initial setup was dialed in the program scales without added headcount, generating only a small volume of customer-service requests. The team runs transaction and redemption reports mid-month and at month-end to watch for abuse and fine-tune reward pricing when an item isn't moving, and a custom script controls widget visibility automatically as new products launch.
30%
redemption rate, above average across similar loyalty programs
4x
annual spend among point redeemers vs non-redeemers
Community & Reviews
A passionate community that shows up
AC Infinity's customers are dedicated indoor growers and hydroponic hobbyists who love sharing their configurable setups. Custom activities reward reviews and Instagram posts, and it's working: products with 50 to 70+ reviews convert far better than those with a handful. The most common feedback the team hears is customers asking why their setup wasn't reshared.
Why Smile.io
The platform behind AC Infinity's program
Smile.io powers loyalty for over 100,000 commerce brands worldwide, including high-growth and enterprise merchants. The platform is engineered for scale, with the integrations, custom activities, and analytics depth required to compound loyalty revenue program-over-program.
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