The story
From hoverboards to a house of brands
Founded in 2015, IMGadgets was the first Canadian brand to introduce safety-certified hoverboards. Over the past decade it has expanded into four sub-brands: Gyrocopters for e-mobility, IMFIT for fitness gear, IMHome for home essentials, and IMLoved for baby and kids products. The throughline across all four is the same: safety-certified, well-engineered products that people use every day.
IMGadgets sells through major retail and marketplace partners including Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, The Shopping Channel, and MDG, and direct through imgadgets.com. Internally, every team operates by one acronym: IMPACT, with the P, Put Customers First, sitting at the center of how the company makes decisions.
The challenge
3% DTC. 97% someone else’s customer.
For most of IMGadgets’ history, the DTC website has been a small slice of total revenue. Last year, imgadgets.com accounted for just 3 percent of company sales, with the remaining 97 percent flowing through Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, and other retail and marketplace channels. That 3 percent wasn’t getting easier to earn. A growing share of DTC traffic was coming from paid acquisition, the returning-customer rate had been declining, and as the catalog expanded from a single category into four, the team faced a new question: how many times does any one person need to buy a hoverboard?
After a full rebrand and website redesign in early 2026, the team set three goals for the next phase: re-engaging a decade of email subscribers who had never converted, lifting repeat-purchase frequency now that the catalog spanned fitness, home, and baby, and reducing the brand’s dependence on paid traffic. The program needed to feel like a values-aligned investment in customers rather than a discount mechanic.
Every product, response, and solution we ship at IMGadgets starts with one question: does this help the customer? IMLoyal is how we answer that question for our existing customers. After ten years, our DTC channel finally feels like ours.
The solution
IMLoyal Rewards
IMGadgets launched IMLoyal on Smile’s Standard tier with a clear philosophy: redemption thresholds had to be achievable, the mechanics had to be honest, and the program had to be treated as a long-term retention asset rather than a discount lever. The team needed a single points-and-rewards engine that could span the full catalog without standing up multiple programs. Once the math was aligned, the full setup, including landing page, terms, and configuration, took about a week.
On the day the program went live, IMGadgets pre-loaded points into the accounts of every email subscriber and past customer from the previous decade. Each of them had enough points to claim their first reward immediately. Subscribers who had been on the email list for over a year without ever buying placed their first order. Existing customers came back for a second purchase within a single week of receiving their points.
For a brand selling four-figure e-bikes and adjustable dumbbells, social proof is one of the strongest conversion drivers for first-time buyers. IMGadgets connected its review program directly to IMLoyal through the Judge.me and Smile integration: every approved product review automatically credits the customer with 50 IMLoyal points. Reviews convert future shoppers, and reviewers earn points that bring them back themselves. The two motions reinforce each other.
The program
IMLoyal
How it works
- 125 points for joining IMLoyal, 1 point per dollar spent, plus a 125-point birthday bonus
- 50 points per approved Judge.me product review, plus 50 for each social follow or like
- Redemption thresholds from $5 off at 500 points up to $125 off at 5,000 points
- Refer a friend: friend gets $5 off their first order, member earns 250 points when it completes
- Pre-loaded points for every email subscriber and past customer at launch, redeemable on day one
The results
The 3% channel that finally performs
In the first months after launch, IMLoyal delivered the metrics IMGadgets cared about most. Member purchase frequency is up 32 percent year over year, and average order value among members is running 27 percent higher than non-members.
IMLoyal is the foundation. The next phase is connecting the program to the rest of the customer experience: plugging Smile data into Klaviyo so every email flow surfaces points balance and reward reminders, upgrading to Smile’s Growth tier for advanced analytics, action-rate caps, and richer segmentation, and bringing IMLoyal into in-store pickup alongside exploration of loyalty mechanics that can work alongside Amazon and Walmart.
