Overview

Pinkoi, Taiwan’s most significant and Asia’s leading online marketplace for buying and selling original design products, launched the first version of the loyalty program three years ago. Users could acquire non-expired reward points from the campaigns and use them as order discounts. Users could also become lifetime tier members by reaching the purchase amount.

Problem

In 2019, we learned two facts about the program through data.

🚨 20% of the highest tier members purchased less than the average of all members, but the cost of the highest tier members’ benefits is numerous.

🚨 We gave out more reward points than users spend every year, which means billions of unused reward points in users’ pockets.

The program was not only losing the ability to drive repeat purchasing but causing enormous losses. So we decide to rebuild a new loyalty program to achieve three high-level goals:

• Make it cost-efficient and maximize the result.

• Motivate repeat purchases.

• Create a scalable points program.

Users & Audiences

Questionnaires & focus groups are conducted to know how members with different user engagement feel about the original loyalty program and what they want to benefit from the new loyalty program. Through research, we found out:

1. Members feel that the reward points are too easy to get and hard to use; therefore, they didn’t consider reward points valuable.

2. Members like the tier system, which can make them feel premium, but they didn’t feel benefited.

3. Q4 is the peak season. We want users to get familiar with the new loyalty program in Q3 and enjoy the peak season's benefits. Low engagement members prefer discounts as a benefit, but high engagement members choose unique and exclusive rewards.

Challenge & Constraints

1. Must be launched before Q3

   • Q4 is the peak season usually, we want users can get familiar with the new loyalty program in Q3 and enjoy benefits in the peak season.

2. A limited budget can be used for the member benefits.

   • Only a limited budget can be used for the tier member benefits. Therefore, we decided to design the tier member benefits with our internal resources and cooperate with external brands by resource exchange.

Process

I set two stages and five submission teams to divide and conquer this project. Each sub-team iterates by prototyping, reviewing, and testing every two weeks.

Stage 1

1. Tier & Cost: Based on the user’s purchasing data, develop a tier system, and calculate the cost allocation of each tier.

2. Program: Design and develop program rules and UI.

Stage 2

1. Production: Design and develop program UIUX.

2. Member Benefits: Design tier benefits that delight user and develops a new reward point system.

3. Launch Campaign: Communicate the new program to users. The final rebuilding program featured two new systems:

Solution

The final rebuilding program featured 2 new systems:

The new tier system with upgrade/downgrade to make high engagement members get the best benefits.

• The program determines membership levels based on members' accumulated spending and the number of purchases made during a one-year membership period. Each membership level will enjoy different benefits, with Royal Members being able to enjoy exclusive VIP services from Pinkoi.

• Members can check their upgrade progress with a visualized interface. It's a long way to upgrade since we have strict criteria; we found that users would be frustrated if they can only see the upgrade goal and learn that they are far away from the goal. So we divided the upgrade progress into several tasks; as long as the user completes the tasks, they can be rewarded and ensure they are on the way to the upgrade goal instead of just seeing how far to the goal.

The new “P Coins” system is not only used for discounts on purchases but can also be used to redeem kinds of rewards.

• Members can earn P Coins when making purchases and completing designated tasks. P Coins can then be used for discounts on purchases and to redeem a wider variety of online or offline rewards.

• Easy-to-use redeem experiences and interface. Through only a few clicks, users can redeem rewards right away, such as transferring to Asia Miles or exchanging a free beverage. By cooperating with all kinds of design and lifestyle brands, the new loyalty program helps Pinkoi get both user success and business success.

Outcome & Result

The new loyalty program helps Pinkoi to get both user success and business success.

• User

  • 85% of members consider the new program as a better program than the original one.

  • 60% P Coins usage rate and 5000+ rewards redemption in 6 months.

• Business

  • The valuable P Coins system enables to attract more external cooperation opportunities and helps Pinkoi to build a broader design life ecosystem.

  • Increase high engagement users by 50%.

  • Maintain program costs under budget.