The story
Where craftsmanship and community show up in the numbers
Wild Hand is a Philadelphia craft supply shop for fiber folk, founded in 2019 by Liz Sytsma. The Mt. Airy storefront curates yarns, fibers, and tools from makers who share their values of craftsmanship, sustainability, and community, and pairs the retail floor with workshops and classes that bring weavers, knitters, crocheters, spinners, and dyers together. Behind the counter is a passionate, returning customer base, and a brand that takes seriously what it means to be a third place for the people who make there.
The challenge
Loyalty that runs quietly while the community does its thing
Wild Hand’s customers aren’t transactional. They’re a community: people who return to learn a new technique, finish a project, or restock fiber for the next one. The team wanted a loyalty program that recognized that relationship, deepening engagement with returning makers while giving newer customers a reason to come back more consistently.
To work, that program had to blend naturally into the Shopify storefront they already ran, stay reliable as the shop grew, and not pull a small team’s time away from the floor and the classroom. The bar was a loyalty platform that could run quietly in the background while their community did what it does best.
The integration with Shopify and easy-to-understand set-up are great. It has also always been super reliable; we’ve had no issues and used this app for years. The customer service is really really good.
The solution
No developers, no drama, just reliable loyalty from day one
Wild Hand chose Smile.io to power their rewards program. The native Shopify integration meant setup was easy, with no developer time and no custom code. From there, the platform has run year after year with the kind of consistency a small team can count on, and the Smile support team has been a direct line for the questions that come up as the program scales.
That reliability matters more than it sounds. For a shop where the team’s attention belongs on customers and classes, a loyalty program that never asks for attention is the version that actually compounds.
What Wild Hand gets from Smile:
- A native Shopify integration that set up without developer involvement
- Multi-year reliability with no operational issues to manage
- A program design that turns first-time shoppers into returning members
The stack
Shopify
The results
67% higher lifetime value and 146% more spend from redeemers
Wild Hand’s loyalty program has reached participation levels that speak to how deeply their customers want to stay connected. A 78% membership rate shows that the program is more than a transactional perk: it’s something the community has chosen to be part of. From there, the economics compound. Members who redeem points spend 146% more than non-redeemers, and member lifetime value runs 67% higher than non-members.
The pattern those numbers describe is what every loyalty program is trying to build: a membership base that grows with the brand, and members who keep coming back to spend the rewards they’ve earned. For Wild Hand, that’s not a marketing funnel; it’s the shape of an active fiber arts community showing up, again and again.
Why Smile
Purpose-built for Shopify, designed to run for the long haul
Wild Hand’s results show how a strong membership base and steady redemption activity can power long-term growth, especially for community-led brands where loyalty isn’t a tactic but a value. With Smile.io, Wild Hand built a program that participates, redeems, and returns, reinforcing the connection between customer loyalty and brand love.
