New Snipes Loyalty Program Touts Cash Back

In time for holiday shopping, shoe retailer Snipes launched its first U.S. loyalty program to build community for consumers and increase lifetime value for the business, said Chief Marketing Officer Kelley Walton. 

The program, dubbed Snipes Reserve, gives shoppers early access to limited sneaker releases and in-person events, plus 3% cash back on purchases.  

Within the Snipes app, loyalty program members also have access to a digital wallet to load payment cards. At the store checkout, shoppers can tap their phones to pay and receive their cash back. The retail chain of 359 stores decided a digital wallet would be an integral part of its loyalty program when it was researching other retailers’ programs and trends in the marketplace, Walton said. 

“We’re seeing an increase in tap-to-pay behavior across Gen Z in particular, and so that allows us to think about a future-proof solution (with) the wallet,” Walton said. 

Snipes Gives Cash Back to Consumers Saving in its App

The digital wallet also allows shoppers to “prefund” their purchases by loading money in the wallet to use toward a future purchase. Snipes gives shoppers 5% cash back for saving money within the app.  

“If they know a big sneaker is coming out in a month or two, they can actually stash money in their wallet every few weeks to get ready for that sneaker to be released and be prepared to have the money in the wallet to purchase it,” Walton said.  

Overall, the program aims to increase customer lifetime value, drive increased order frequency and increased order value, Walton said.  

Snipes Reserve Launches for 2025 Holiday Season

Snipes has worked on launching a loyalty program for more than a year and it decided the holidays was a good time to debut the first iteration of the program, Walton said.  

“We’ve used this key shopping occasion as an opportunity to speak to our consumers about a natural time to be out in the market shopping,” she said.  

This is a baseline program, she said, and the retailer plans to expand features of Snipes Reserve in 2026. For example, it might consider adding tiers to the program, which is a common structure to loyalty programs. Snipes also wants to use the first-party data it receives from the program, such as products shoppers buy, for more sophisticated customer segmentation in marketing, Walton said. 

“Strategically getting all of this incremental information will allow us to be sharper with how we target product, pricing and other offers to our different target consumers and subsegments,” Walton said.  

The retailer is letting consumers know about the program through email, SMS, app push notifications, its website, influencers, and paid and earned media. The Snipes Reserve marketing message also is woven into its paid holiday campaign. In store, Snipes displays QR codes for shoppers to scan to sign up for the program, and associates can register shoppers as well.  

‘Strong Early Adoption’ For the Program 

So far, Snipes is pleased with the consumer response to the program. The merchant has already noticed an uptick in repeat purchases, and consumers using the app, which it attributes to the new program, she said.  

“We’ve seen strong early adoption, particularly with Gen Z,” she said. “We’re measuring the health of the program by tracking things like the number of wallet activations and engagement, participation in early access sneaker drops — which have been strong — and repeat usage and repeat purchase behavior. So far, we’ve been exceeding our targets on all of these key KPIs.”

Snipes would not disclose the number of app users it has, but more than 100,000 consumers have downloaded the Android Snipes USA app, according to the Google Play store.  

Lessons Learned from European Loyalty Program 

Snipes was founded in Germany and already operates a loyalty program in the European market. Before the brand launched its U.S. program, Snipes U.S. met with the European team to glean any learnings, Walton said, declining to share specifics about the market’s program.  

Based on feedback from its European team, Snipes worked to get buy-in from its in-store associates about the program, she said.  

“One of the key things that we implemented was that this program is made or broken at the store level,” she said. 

Store associates are the ones who will be chatting with shoppers to sign up and use the program, and it’s important to have them excited about it. Snipes did a Beta program with employees pre-launch and made adjustments based on their feedback. For example, associates mentioned that a significant share of shoppers pay for goods in cash, and the loyalty program should be available to them as well. Based on that feedback, shoppers can sign up for the program without needing to provide a credit or debit card.  

In addition, because associates sign up customers at the register, they advocated for a faster registration. In response, Snipes allows in-store shoppers to sign up with just a phone number so they can get credit and receive cash back for the purchase that day, without holding up the store line. Then, the customer can complete the program form online later with details such as shipping address.