Selling directly to players through a web shop instead of sticking to the app stores has multiple benefits. One of the biggest is saving the 30% commission fee that Apple and Google take on every in-app purchase. With a web shop, you can avoid this fee and pocket more revenue. A web shop also gives you access to valuable first-party data, like email addresses. You can then use this info to run more effective and cost-efficient UA campaigns. Lastly, unlike app stores, web shops let you engage with players on a deeper level and broaden your IP universe because you can get greater control over the entire experience. The web is a more flexible medium, letting you take actions on your shop like offering bulk discounts, establishing a loyalty program, and creating an engagement hub of non-commerce content (e.g. lore, blog, web series). Explore even more advantages here.

There are three key steps to getting your game integrated with Stash Web Shop. First, set up account linking so you can identify players and award them the correct items. Second, prepare to process purchases by creating an endpoint on your backend for authorization that Stash will call every time players make purchases. Third, configure your catalog - with Stash, you can operate a unified catalog through an API endpoint that dynamically updates item assets, the products available for a specific player, purchase limits and rules, and time availability. Check out our documentation on Stash Web Shop integration here.

Loyalty programs are usually tier-based and tied to spending on the web shop. The more that players spend, the higher their loyalty tier. There are a few types of loyalty benefits you can offer on your shop that give players more rewards and bonuses as they progress through the tiers - these encourage both higher spend and greater engagement. These include tier-based discounts, bonus point events, custom avatars and icons, reward points, and birthday gifts. Huuuge Casino, for example, has a seven-tiered loyalty program that includes benefits like reward multipliers, personalized offers, and even a personal account manager for those in the VIP tiers.

Stash offers the ability to create an engagement hub for your webshop. This non-commerce feature holds content like lore, web series, blog posts, and interactive elements. Together with commercial incentives, this tool can encourage greater engagement, loyalty, and retention as it helps expand your brand’s universe.

With machine learning, Stash is able to show the most appealing offers to players to maximize LTV and retention. Using in-game data and player profile information, the ML model is able to determine their likelihood of purchasing (low, medium, and high) and show discounted offers based on this bucket. Through reinforcement learning, the model keeps improving its strategy based on the effectiveness of each discount offer and purchase decisions of players.

Because Stash plugs into your game’s servers, designing a web shop with Stash lets you fully replicate the in-game store experience: all of your offers, visuals, and the overall design are dynamic and customizable. You control how you list and categorize your products, including setting prices, managing inventory, and organizing sales and promotions - the same way you would do with Apple and Google.

A web shop gives you access to first-party data, like email, that you can use for your UA campaigns. Players need to connect their user IDs or create an account to use the web shop and ensure their purchases are transferred in-game. Since this account creation includes user identifiers, you can then use this information to create lookalike and retargeting campaigns. This is especially useful in a post-IDFA environment where user-level identifiers are much harder to access and collect - yet are still valuable for running targeted and effective UA campaigns. 

There are many strategies you can use on your web shop to encourage higher spend, retention, and engagement. Stumble Guys by Niantic offers creator codes that players can get from their favorite influencers/creators, then redeem at the shop for a reward, like a discount or limited-time bundle. Scopely’s Marvel Strike Force runs a milestone offer tied to purchasing/spending on their web shop, such as collecting Web UPCs. A Party in My Dorm from Thinking Ape has tiered subscription offers, offering additional in-game and web-based bonuses based on tier. And Heart of Vegas from Product Madness has a chained offer, rewarding players for purchasing the Premium Bonus then giving additional coins to those who purchased and return daily. Other examples of advanced web shop offers include bonus rewards tied to loyalty tier, volume-based discounts, and buy-one-get-one offers.

Stash is here to help beyond building and launching your web shop. We offer our expert insights, best practices, and tips around discounts and offer strategies to drive more traffic to your store and maximize conversions. From our blog containing helpful articles on this topic and more, to our extensive documentation that includes technical info alongside best practices, there are extensive resources at your disposal. We also have live chat, email, and online meetings to support you in optimizing your web shop strategies or answer any other questions you may have. Talk to us if you want to learn more!

You can analyze web shop performance directly in Stash Studio. Here, you’ll get access to a variety of reports and visualizations, including transaction summary, geographic breakdown, checkout analytics, product performance, and webshop analytics. Web shop KPIs are also included here, like gross revenue, LTV, AOV, and chargeback rate. The idea is, your entire webshop performance is easily accessed, viewed, and shared from one place.