Free and paid apps allow you to customize your Shopify store features to your unique needs as a business owner.
You can choose to perform this step now or later as you need new functionality.
With hundreds of apps in the Shopify App Store , there is no single optimal way to build your ecommerce store, but here are some popular apps you should definitely consider to suit your different needs:
Discount Codes (allows backers to order rewards from your store for free) : Volume Discounts
Email marketing (a solution for distributing custom discount codes to backers) : Mailchimp , Klaviyo
Dropshipping (for easy rewards/swag): Oberlo
Shipping & Tracking : Shopify Shipping , ShipStation , Shippo
Upselling and cross-selling of other products: Upselling of Products
Customer Support: Zendesk
Marketing and Sales : Kit
Mailing List Building: Privy
Referral and Loyalty Programs: SweetTooth , Loyalty Lion , ReferralCandy
Returns and Exchanges: Returns Management System , Loop
You should also be aware of Shopify's potential sales channels as you consider how you'll build your multi-channel business. The following sales channels can be added in the Shopify admin as needed, canada whatsapp number on both the Basic and Premium plans:
Facebook and Instagram Shop : Feature your products on your Facebook “Business Page” for your audience to purchase.
Buy Button : Generate an embed code that you can paste on any web page to sell anywhere.
Messenger Channel : Allows customers to contact you for support, purchase products, and receive order notifications through a Facebook Messenger chat.
POS : Sell offline in a temporary physical store or at an event with the point of sale (POS) system.
Amazon : List your Shopify products on Amazon to sell on one of the largest online marketplaces.
Launch: Moving Kickstarter Backer Data to Shopify
Once you've set up your store and successfully completed your campaign, you'll need to get order information from all of your backers before you can send them their rewards.
Step 1. Instead of sending out a survey to backers and going through the manual process of fulfilling all of your orders, you can export your Kickstarter Backer Report and use your email marketing solution to have backers place their order through your online store.
Image from the Sponsors Report
Step 2. Open the .CSV file in Excel and calculate the total retail value of what each backer will need to order from your website, based on their pledge level, and group the different amounts together (e.g., you have 10 pledges of $50, 3 pledges of $55, etc.). If you offered first-time pricing or bundles, where your products were discounted, you may need to do some math to find the retail value.
Step 3. Once you have this information and sorted it into groups in your spreadsheet, you'll need to generate unique, one-time codes for each backer, based on the specific retail value of each pledge level. If you haven't already, you'll need to install the free Bulk Discount Creator app on your Shopify store.
Here's what Rockwell Razors says about how they used the Bulk Discount Creator app to save themselves from a crowdfunding crisis .
“In Rockwell’s first Kickstarter campaign for the Rockwell 6S, manufacturing challenges due to a dishonest supplier negatively impacted the experience for many of our backers. After redesigning the product and finding a new supplier, we relaunched the Rockwell 6S and offered a free replacement to every backer of the original Kickstarter campaign.”
“Using the Volume Discounts and MailChimp integration apps, we created and sent unique discount codes to each of our 2,500 backers that gave them 100% off their new and improved Rockwell 6S. Backers loved this, and hundreds of backers ordered additional (paid) razors to go along with their free replacement. We did $17,000 in sales in one day, which helped subsidize the cost of manufacturing and shipping all of those free razors. While I hope readers of this article never have to replace 2,500 items for their customers, volume discounts can be used in other ways to reward your backers. Think backer-exclusive discounts on new products or free sample offers with orders over $50.”
How to generate discount codes
If the discount needs to apply to more than one product (rewards or bundles, for example), you can have it apply to an entire collection in the “Discount Type” fields.
The window for using the discount code should take into account how long it will take you to ship your products plus another 6 to 12 months to ensure your backers have a chance to claim their order.
Step 4. Once you’ve used the discount code generator to create enough codes for the number of backers at a particular pledge level, you can export them and add them to a new column in your backer report spreadsheet (call it “Discount Codes”).
Discount codes in spreadsheet column
Once you have assigned discount codes to all of your sponsors, save the .CSV file and import it as a list into your email marketing solution.
Step 5. Create a campaign and in the email builder, use merge tags to customize the emails so that each backer receives an email with their unique discount code, a link to your store, and instructions on how to claim their reward.
Kickstarter Email Campaign Discount Codes
As your backers place orders through your store, you’ll receive notifications (you’ll know by the cha-ching sound ) and you’ll be able to see them in the “Orders” section of your Shopify store.
Note: If you have an existing inventory of products that you wish to keep separate from your backers’ rewards, be sure to create a “Backer Rewards Collection” and not publish it on your regular store. Be sure to provide direct links to this collection to your backers and explain that it can only be accessed through this link.
Shipping and Fulfillment: Delivering Rewards to Your Backers
Once you've finally gotten your backers to place their orders through your Shopify store, you can use Shopify Shipping to create and print shipping labels at discounted shipping rates.
If you haven't already, be sure to set expectations for how and when shipments will arrive in your FAQ section .
If you're using a dropshipping business for rewards, let them know they might receive their order and rewards separately to reduce the risk of complaints and returns.
To learn more about shipping and fulfillment, check out our guide: How to Ship to Customers: Online Shipping in 2024
And finally, growth
Completing your Kickstarter campaign and launching your store is just the beginning.
The rest is growth.
Your Shopify store is designed to scale with you, allowing you to add features, new channels… the sky’s the limit.
Get support every step of the way, including free resources on the Shopify blog to help you grow and scale your business, a wide variety of apps to customize your store, and experts available to provide 24/7 customer support.
How far will you take your business from here?