Loyalty program statistics are easy to find and hard to trust. Many of the numbers that circulate online trace back to old studies or to roundup sites with no method behind them. This page keeps only figures with a named source, a sample and a date: Smile's own published research on Shopify Plus, primary studies from EY, Salesforce, Bond and Antavo published in 2025 and 2026, and Nielsen's 2021 trust study.
It is written for Shopify Plus and enterprise teams who need to size a loyalty program, set targets for one already running, or defend a budget. Where studies define a metric differently, the tables say so.
TL;DR: Loyalty programs are standard in retail: 67% of retailers offer one and 29% plan to launch one within 24 months (Salesforce, 2025), and 84% of members say a program makes them more likely to buy again. The most common reward redemption rate brands report is 41% to 60% (EY, 2025). On Smile's platform, customers who redeem a reward spend 31% more per order (Smile data, February 2026).
Loyalty Statistics From Smile
Takeaway: Customers who redeem spend more per order, and at Shopify Plus scale a small gain in repeat purchasing is worth six figures a year.
Smile publishes The State of Loyalty on Shopify Plus, a data report released in July 2026. It analyzes 78,839 Plus storefronts tracked by Store Leads (data pulled July 16, 2026), measures nine dedicated loyalty platforms with identical queries, traces 1,357 Plus uninstall events over 12 months, and breaks loyalty adoption out by revenue band and by vertical. Smile's platform data and customer stories add program-level results.
| Figure | What it measures | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| 31% | More spent per order by customers who redeem a reward, across Smile's platform | Smile platform data, Smile data team, February 2026 |
| About $400,000 a year | Incremental repeat revenue from a two-point lift in repeat-purchase share, for a brand with $20M in annual revenue (illustrative math) | The State of Loyalty on Shopify Plus, July 2026 |
| About $10,000 a year | The same two-point lift at $500K in annual revenue | The State of Loyalty on Shopify Plus, July 2026 |
Published results from Smile customer stories show what individual programs reach. They are single-brand outcomes, not averages.
| Brand | Result | Basis | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Applied Nutrition, sports nutrition | 19% redemption rate; 94% of orders earn points | Across the program | Smile customer story, reviewed September 2026 |
| Applied Nutrition | 215% higher lifetime value; 76% higher purchase frequency | Members vs non-members | Smile customer story, reviewed September 2026 |
| ROKA, performance eyewear | 75% redemption rate; 28% higher average annual spend | Loyalty members; members vs non-members | Smile customer story, reviewed September 2026 |
| Great Garden Plants, online nursery | 52% of the active customer base enrolled | Within the program's first peak season | Smile customer story, reviewed September 2026 |
| Lobo Azul, pet food | 81% of shoppers are loyalty members; 84% of points earned were redeemed | Past year; last 30 days | Smile customer story, reviewed September 2026 |
| Blue Banana, apparel | 40% higher average annual purchase frequency | Redeemers vs non-redeemers | Smile customer story, reviewed September 2026 |
| Naturium, skincare | 64% of loyalty redemptions driven by email flows | Attributed to Klaviyo, Q1 2025 | Smile customer story, reviewed September 2026 |
One caution applies to every member versus non-member figure on this page: members and redeemers self-select. They are often your best customers already, so the gap describes engaged customers rather than a controlled experiment. The State of Loyalty report's methodology makes the same point.
Loyalty Program Adoption Statistics
Takeaway: Most retailers already run a loyalty program and most shoppers belong to several, so having a program no longer sets a brand apart. How it performs does.
| Statistic | Source and year |
|---|---|
| 67% of retailers offer a loyalty program, and 29% plan to introduce one in the next 24 months | Salesforce Connected Shoppers Report, 6th edition, 2025 (1,700 retail decision-makers, 21 countries) |
| 80% of retailers with a loyalty program say they are refining it | Salesforce, 2025 |
| 77% of shoppers belong to at least one loyalty program; the average shopper belongs to four | Salesforce, 2025 (8,350 shoppers, surveyed November to December 2024) |
| 92% of US consumers surveyed are enrolled in at least one loyalty program, and almost 50% belong to more than five | EY Loyalty Market Study, 2025 (1,606 US consumers, October 2024) |
| Loyalty program owners allocate 51.5% of their marketing budget to CRM and loyalty | Antavo Global Customer Loyalty Report, 2026 (3,000 marketing, IT and loyalty professionals; 10,000 program members) |
For Shopify Plus specifically, Shopify publishes no Plus merchant count and no Plus-specific app usage data (checked July 2026), so public baselines come from third-party store data. The State of Loyalty report measures loyalty adoption across Plus storefronts by revenue band and vertical.
Membership and Engagement Statistics
Takeaway: Enrollment is easy to win and engagement is not. About a third of shoppers hold a membership they have never used.
| Statistic | Source and year |
|---|---|
| 35% of shoppers belong to a loyalty program they have never used | Salesforce, 2025 |
| More than half of consumers surveyed engage with their loyalty programs weekly | EY, 2025 |
| The share of customers enrolled that brands most often report is 41% to 60%; the share of members who are active is most often 61% to 80% | EY, 2025 (397 loyalty leaders at companies with $100M to more than $5B in annual revenue) |
| 65.9% of consumers say using a loyalty program is now part of their lives, and 43.2% are more likely to join a program than a year ago | Antavo, 2026 |
| 3.4% of consumers actively opt out of loyalty programs | Antavo report announcement, February 2026 |
Membership rate is worth tracking against stores like yours. Smile defines it as the share of customers who ordered in the last 30 days who are members.
Loyalty Program Redemption Rate Statistics
Takeaway: Redemption is the clearest sign a program is working. Brands most often report that 41% to 60% of rewards get redeemed, yet about half of brands do not know their rate.
| Statistic | Source and year |
|---|---|
| The reward redemption rate brands most often report is 41% to 60% | EY, 2025 |
| 51% of brands know their reward redemption rate; 38% know their point breakage rate | EY, 2025 |
| The point breakage rate brands most often report is 31% to 40% | EY, 2025 |
| 27% of the points customers earned in 2025 were left unspent; in programs that expire points, 12% of points earned expire | Antavo, 2026 |
| Top reasons members are disappointed with a program: it takes too long to earn rewards (49.1%), rewards expire before they can be used (41.1%), unattractive rewards (38.9%) | Antavo, 2026 |
| Customers who redeem a reward spend 31% more per order | Smile platform data, February 2026 |
Definitions differ, so compare like with like. Smile's redemption rate is points redeemed divided by points earned over the last 30 days. EY reports the reward redemption rate as each brand tracks it, and Antavo measures points left unspent across a year.
Revenue and Repeat Purchase Statistics
Takeaway: Members say programs make them buy again and spend more, and most brands that measure ROI find it positive.
| Statistic | Source and year |
|---|---|
| 84% of loyalty program members say programs make them more likely to repurchase | Salesforce, 2025 |
| 85% of consumers are more likely to keep doing business with a brand that has a loyalty program, and 73% spend more as a result | Bond Loyalty Report, 2026 (20,591 US program members, January to March 2026) |
| More than three-quarters of consumers say loyalty programs compel them to spend more; 41% generally choose to shop where they have a program | EY, 2025 |
| The share of annual sales from loyalty members that brands most often report is 26% to 50% | EY, 2025 |
| 9 in 10 program owners who measure performance report a positive ROI, averaging 5.3x (5.2x a year earlier) | Antavo, 2026 |
| The average annual ROI brands most often report is 10% to 20% | EY, 2025 |
| A two-point lift in repeat-purchase share is worth about $400,000 a year to a $20M brand | Smile, The State of Loyalty on Shopify Plus, July 2026 |
The two ROI figures measure different things: Antavo averages the multiples reported by owners with a positive return, while EY asks brands for their average annual ROI. Build your own case from your revenue and repeat-purchase share.
VIP Tier Statistics
Takeaway: Fewer shoppers belong to tiered programs than to points programs, and in published program results, spend climbs steeply with each tier.
| Statistic | Source and year |
|---|---|
| Types of loyalty programs shoppers belong to: points-based 57%, cash back 32%, tiered 24% | Salesforce, 2025 |
| Gold VIP members spend 1,411% more a year than the base tier at Great Garden Plants, and Silver members 581% more | Great Garden Plants customer story, reviewed September 2026 |
| Fiesta Tableware runs four VIP tiers, with perks from $5 off to 25% off at the top tier | Fiesta Tableware customer story, reviewed September 2026 |
Spend thresholds at well-known retail programs give a sense of where tiers start:
| Program | Tiers and entry spend | Qualifying window | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ulta Beauty Rewards | Member; Platinum at $500; Diamond at $1,200 | Calendar year | Ulta Beauty Rewards FAQ, October 2026 |
| My Pandora (US) | Pink; Silver after a first purchase and birthdate; Gold at $400 a year | Year | My Pandora, October 2026 |
| Swarovski Club (US) | Bronze; Silver from $300; Gold from $700; Platinum from $1,400 | Purchases within 12 months | Swarovski Club, October 2026 |
For thresholds, perks and naming, see our guide to creating a VIP tier program that drives revenue.
Referral Statistics
Takeaway: People trust the people they know more than any ad, and most program members say they already refer friends.
| Statistic | Source and year |
|---|---|
| 68.5% of customers say they refer friends | Antavo, 2026 |
| 88% of global respondents trust recommendations from people they know more than any other channel | Nielsen Trust in Advertising Study, 2021 (40,000+ consumers, September 2021) |
For the tools that run referral programs on Shopify, see the best referral program apps for Shopify.
Loyalty Benchmarks by Industry
Takeaway: What good looks like depends on your category, so compare your program with your vertical rather than with all of ecommerce.
| Statistic | Source and year |
|---|---|
| Retail brands are the most likely to track customer feedback and sentiment (49% vs 35% overall) | EY, 2025 |
| Consumer packaged goods brands are the most likely to track average order value (45% vs 28% overall) | EY, 2025 |
| Food and beverage brands are the most likely to track cross-sell and up-sell (33% vs 23%) and incremental spend of members vs non-members (31% vs 23%) | EY, 2025 |
The State of Loyalty report breaks Shopify Plus adoption out for four verticals: Beauty and Fitness, Apparel, Food and Drink, and Home and Garden. For the program design that fits each category, see the guides for beauty and cosmetics, fashion, food and beverage, health and wellness, pet care, home and garden, jewelry, luxury and sport and outdoors brands.
How to Use These Benchmarks
Industry statistics tell you where the market is. Your own rates, set against stores like yours, tell you what to change.
- Use one definition per metric. Smile's loyalty benchmarks track four rates over the last 30 days: redemption rate (points redeemed divided by points earned), order earning rate (orders that earned points), reward usage rate (redeemed rewards used on an order) and membership rate (recent buyers who are members).
- Compare with stores of your size and industry. A survey figure blends every size and category. Smile benchmarks each rate against similar stores, with the median and top quartile, on the Growth, Plus and Enterprise plans.
- Read member gaps as direction, not causation. Members self-select, so a lift between members and non-members describes your engaged customers. Track the same cohort before and after a program change.
- Size the revenue before you set targets. Apply the State of Loyalty math to your own numbers: annual revenue multiplied by the repeat-purchase share you expect to gain.
- Review monthly, act quarterly. Only 51% of brands know their redemption rate and 48% know their share of annual sales from enrolled customers (EY, 2025). Smile's analytics show all four rates month by month, so the effect of each change is visible.
Benchmarks are most useful when a team acts on them. Applied Nutrition's redemption rate sits at 19%, above the Smile benchmark for comparable merchants, with 94% of orders earning points, per its customer story. To build or rebuild a program around these numbers, see how to create a loyalty program on Shopify and how to build a loyalty program that scales with your brand.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good loyalty program redemption rate? There is no single standard, because studies define redemption differently. In EY's 2025 Loyalty Market Study, the reward redemption rate brands most often reported was 41% to 60%, and Antavo's 2026 report found that 27% of points earned in 2025 went unspent. The most useful comparison is your own rate against stores of similar size and industry, which is how Smile's loyalty benchmarks report it.
What percentage of retailers have a loyalty program? 67% of retailers offer a loyalty program, and another 29% plan to introduce one within 24 months, according to Salesforce's Connected Shoppers Report (2025), a survey of 1,700 retail decision-makers in 21 countries.
How many loyalty programs does the average shopper belong to? The average shopper belongs to four loyalty programs, and 77% belong to at least one (Salesforce, 2025). In EY's 2025 study of US consumers, 92% were enrolled in at least one program and almost 50% in more than five.
Do loyalty programs increase repeat purchases? Members say they do: 84% of loyalty program members say programs make them more likely to repurchase (Salesforce, 2025), and 85% of US members are more likely to keep doing business with a brand that has a program (Bond, 2026). Among published Smile results, Applied Nutrition's members buy 76% more often than non-members.
What is the average ROI of a loyalty program? It depends on how ROI is measured. Antavo's 2026 report found that 9 in 10 program owners who measure performance report a positive return, averaging 5.3x. In EY's 2025 study, the average annual ROI brands most often reported was 10% to 20%.
How much more do loyalty program members spend? 73% of US loyalty program members say they spend more because of a program (Bond, 2026). Across Smile's platform, customers who redeem a reward spend 31% more per order (Smile data, February 2026).
Which loyalty program benchmarks should a Shopify brand track? Track redemption rate, order earning rate, reward usage rate and membership rate, each over the last 30 days, plus the share of revenue from members. Only about half of brands know their redemption rate (51%) or their share of sales from enrolled customers (48%), per EY's 2025 study. Smile benchmarks the four rates against stores of similar size and industry on its Growth, Plus and Enterprise plans.
