Understand loyalty programs

Your business may use a loyalty program where shoppers can earn points and then redeem them by choosing items from either a separate loyalty program catalog or an integrated catalog that includes both standard and loyalty items.

For sites that use loyalty programs, the cart must either include only items that are paid for in loyalty points or are paid for using standard currency methods (such as credit/debit cards). There cannot be a mixture of the two types in a single cart. You may also choose to have shoppers pay for items in loyalty points while having tax and shipping charges completed using standard monetary currency methods (such as credit/debit cards or gift cards). These choices are made using the Commerce Admin API. Check with your internal support resources to discover which methods for payment are being used in regards to your loyalty program.

The system maintains information on loyalty point totals for each shopper. The details on a specific shopper’s points can be found on the shopper’s customer profile page in the Agent Console.

A shopper creates an order by choosing items from the loyalty catalog just as she would from the regular site. The shopper’s total for the loyalty order is deducted from their loyalty point total.

With returns, both the loyalty points and any taxes and shipping charges are refunded to the shopper, depending on how the transaction was completed.

For more details, see Work with Loyalty Programs in Extending Oracle Commerce. For information on setting up store credit, see Integrate with a Store Credit Payment Gateway in Extending Oracle Commerce.