Shopify closed out 2024 with a bang, launching their ‘25 Winter Editions with a whole host of impressive updates. Most excitingly, they also launched new functionality for Customer Accounts. 

In this guide, we’re going to take a deep dive into: 

• What are Customer Accounts
• How have Customer Accounts improved
• What are Customer Account Extensions
• How do Customer Account Extensions help drive loyalty 
• What loyalty extensions are currently available 

What are Shopify Customer Accounts, and how have they changed? 

Customer Accounts allow shoppers to log in to view their orders, their profile information, and any saved addresses. Shopify’s new Customer Accounts lets users access a wider range of functions and information, such as loyalty programs and order returns.

Here’s how it works.

Imagine you’re online and browsing your favorite beauty retailer’s website. You see something you might have bought before, but you’re not sure and want to check, so you log in and take a look at your previous orders. 

Historically, with Shopify’s Legacy Customer Accounts, you would have used your email and password to log into your account and access your purchase history. With the newest version of Customer Accounts, customers can log in using a one-time 6-digit verification code sent by email – no password required. 

So far, so simple. However, in the course of discovery with brands using Customer Accounts, Shopify found that, in reality, customers did not need to log into just one account. They also needed to log into other applications – for example, the loyalty program, the returns portal, and many other portals in order to access all their information. 

This is counterintuitive to the seamless shopper experience that Shopify strives to provide, so they set about creating one unified log in for every shopper that works across all services and which brands can control and manage. 

Shopify new Customer Accounts vs classic: how have Customer Accounts improved? 

With the latest iteration of Customer Accounts, shoppers can log in and get a great self-serve experience that persists all the way from product pages to the loyalty program, to their account, and to the checkout and post-purchase pages. 

They can log in, edit their orders, submit return requests, change their subscriptions around, or access their loyalty account without having to log into multiple portals or speak to support. This helps reduce both admin and support time for brands, driving down costs and increasing margin per customer. 

However, that ease of use translates into greater long-term value, too. If a customer has a great experience and finds it super easy to manage their orders, they’re more likely to return and repeatedly purchase from your brand, increasing their customer lifetime value and also making it far more likely they’ll refer a friend or family member. 

But there are also greater opportunities for you as a brand. You can now use consistent branding across login and all across the shopping experience rather than relying on the functionality of the individual technologies you’re using. 

The entire Customer Account will inherit the branding on your site, so it will feel like a really consistent experience wherever they are in their journey. 

Personalization is also a key driver in the improvements around Customer Accounts. Providing a location to collect and store additional data such as sizing or preferences. The Customer Record can, therefore, become a source of truth for you, helping you to personalize communications and experiences to increase engagement and conversion. 

A win for brands and for customers, too! 

What are Customer Account Extensions? 

So now we understand the changes and improvements to Customer Accounts, let’s explore Customer Account Extensions. 

Extensions allow app developers, such as LoyaltyLion and Gorgias, to seamlessly integrate their technologies into Customer Accounts. This means that once they are logged in, customers can see all information from those technologies within their account. 

It’s worth noting that brands can also develop their own custom apps and extensions, but with a wide library of Extensions already available, there is plenty out there to get you started. 

To use Extensions is easy as you no longer have to use liquid code. It’s a simple case of drag and drop. You can drop an app block from a provider such as LoyaltyLion into one of your account pages with no coding at all, and you can rearrange your app blocks to the order you prefer too.   

One of the biggest improvements afforded with Extensions, however, is the ability to preview and check everything before you set it live. You can check that the apps you’re using look and feel the way you want them to, giving you greater confidence with every simple tweak you make. 

To recap, improved customer experience and increased personalization are just two of the major benefits of Customer Accounts and Extensions. Fortunately, these are two hot topics in loyalty and retention. 

Let’s explore how you can use Shopify’s Customer Account Extensions to drive greater results from your loyalty and rewards program.  

How do Customer Account Extensions help drive loyalty?

Shopify’s Customer Accounts – and particularly Extensions – make it significantly easier to maximize the impact of your loyalty program by increasing the number of opportunities customers have to interact with your program during a typical user journey. 

In turn, this helps you to retain customers for longer and increase their lifetime value. 

We’re going to explore the three main Shopify Customer Account apps that can help you increase the visibility of your loyalty program: 

• Points for order
• Loyalty status
• Full-page loyalty app 

On logging into your Customer Account editor within Shopify, you have the ability to add each of these apps to your Customer Accounts collection. You can then add them directly to the relevant location and customize where they live within your UI. 

But what does each of these apps do? 

Let’s look at points for order first. This sits on your Order Status page, quite simply, showing customers exactly how many points they have earned with any transaction they make. 

This is powerful because it shows customers who are engaged with your program exactly how many points they’ve earned with their most recent purchase, which in turn motivates them to return and use those points at a later date. It also helps to surface the points earned to those who are less engaged with the program and the benefits of participating. 

Next, let’s look at loyalty status. This lives in the Order Index page, and again it’s up to you where within your UI it sits. This app will show your loyalty program members what loyalty tier they are in and how many points they have available at a glance. 

Again, this is a powerful way to give your program more visibility, but also to motivate customers to earn more points if they are close to unlocking the benefits in the next loyalty tier. 

Finally, the full-page loyalty app. You can add the full page loyalty app with just one click, and you will instantly have your own loyalty page living within your Customer Account, a link to which will appear at the top of your Customer Accounts area.

When a customer first visits the full loyalty page, they will see a welcome message inviting them to explore the loyalty program. 

When they click through to view the rewards, they will see the full loyalty program overview. This includes information such as when the member joined the loyalty program, how many points they have earned since joining, how they earned them, and how they are progressing through tiers. 

The Available Rewards section shows what rewards are already available and how far the member is from unlocking their next perk. 

Further down the page, you can show all the different ways a member can earn points, surface the member’s unique referral link, and show them the free product rewards they could earn by participating in the program. 

As you can see, the full-page loyalty app allows members to view every detail about your loyalty program – and their status within it – without having to log into another portal. 

Members can immediately see what tier they are in, what rewards they have to redeem, and how many points they need to unlock their next reward. 

They can do all of this simply by logging into their Customer Account. This page also pulls from your store’s theme, so it will always look on brand. 

Some loyalty program providers offer more Customer Accounts extensions than others 

As you can see, the loyalty extensions available for Shopify Customer Accounts provide a quick and easy but highly powerful way for stores to surface their loyalty programs in more places within the customer journey. 

In turn this helps to drive up program engagement and participation, increasing the lifetime value of every loyalty program member. 

It’s as simple as drag and drop, but you may be wondering if all Shopify loyalty providers have the same functionality. We’ve compiled a simple list to help you understand which extensions the top providers are offering: 

Learn more about our Customer Account extensions

At LoyaltyLion, we’re hugely excited about the positive changes Shopify has made to Customer Accounts, and we can’t wait to see stores doing more to surface their loyalty programs with much less effort. 

If you’d like to find out more about our Customer Account extensions, you can speak to one of our team, or watch our Customer Accounts Masterclass webinar. 

We’d love to hear how you’re finding Customer Accounts and which extensions you’ve installed.