Andrew Lissimore has been running the audio apparel site Headphones.com for nearly a decade now. While audiophiles have a high affinity towards their gear and want to try out new gadgets, Lissimore wasn’t satisfied with continuously spending money on platforms like Meta and Google to acquire new customers; he wanted to find a way to better retain the customers he already had.
The founder started to look for solutions within the Shopify ecosystem that would help the business with loyalty programs. But most of what he found offered only spend and tier-based solutions. So he decided to build his own system.
What started as a project to solve loyalty for Headphones.com is now a startup called Lantern, which other companies can use to easily integrate loyalty solutions into their own businesses.
Initially, the company wired together different apps to have a variety of loyalty points based on stamps, spend, points, and referrals, but it was hard to manage. Plus, bringing together different apps introduced challenges with user experience flows and brand identity.
“We thought it would be great to have a Shopify native system for loyalty that is easy to customize and integrate,” Lissimore said. “I managed to convince Shopify designers Kyle Peatt and Dominic McPhee, who built their Polaris design system, to work on this.”
Later, both joined Lantern as co-founders. Peatt currently works as the chief design and product officer, and McPhee works as the chief technology officer. In total, the company currently has eight full-time employees.
Lantern co-founders Dominic McPhee and Kyle Peatt. Image Credits: Lantern
Lantern can handle customer account creation and management, loyalty, and referrals for any vendor working on Shopify. Websites can reward returning or new customers, and award them points for activities like participating in forums, as well. The company explained that the sellers can easily integrate their solution and don’t need to add any extra code to do so.
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Lissimore said that operating Headphones.com provided the perfect testing ground for Lantern to understand the pain points of being a seller and getting better retention.
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