Barkers boost loyalty rewards and customer purchases using mobile wallets
Founded in 1972, Barkers sits within the New Zealand-owned Barkers and Max fashion group, which has a combined footprint of more than 60 stores. Litecard gives the group an enterprise mobile wallet and location-based engagement channel across a nationally distributed retail network.
Barkers & Co is one of the oldest New Zealand menswear brands and has one of the longest standing loyalty programs too. Members earn Barkers Dollars, progress through Silver, Gold and Platinum tiers, and receive access to birthday rewards, member offers, new releases, collaborations and exclusive events.
The program offered meaningful value, but many customers did not regularly return to the Barkers website or search through previous emails to check what rewards were available to them.
Litecard helped Barkers bring those rewards into a channel customers could access more easily: Apple Wallet and Google Wallet.
The challenge
The main issue was not the quality of the Barkers & Co program. It was reward discovery.
Customers could have Barkers Dollars, tier benefits or relevant offers available, but these were spread across Barkers’ ecommerce, email and retail ecosystem. Unless a customer logged into their online account, opened the right email or asked a staff member, they might not know what value was waiting for them.
This reduced the visibility of the program between purchases and limited the ability of rewards to influence the next store visit.
Barkers also runs customer events and local retail activity. Traditional national email campaigns were not always the most relevant way to promote an event taking place near a specific group of members.
The Litecard solution
Litecard gave Barkers members a personalised digital loyalty card stored in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet.
The pass created a permanent and accessible place for customers to view their membership and relevant reward information without needing to repeatedly log into an account or find an earlier campaign.
Klaviyo was used to deliver personalised wallet links through Barkers’ existing customer communications. Shopify continued to support ecommerce, while Tempo POS remained part of the in-store customer journey.
Barkers also used Litecard’s location-based notifications to reach members near relevant stores and events. When Barkers was running an event in a particular area, nearby wallet members could receive a timely notification encouraging them to attend.
This allowed Barkers to communicate based on physical proximity and immediate relevance, rather than relying only on broad email sends.
Technology stack
- Shopify
- Tempo POS
- Klaviyo
- Apple Wallet and Google Wallet
- Litecard
- Location-based wallet notifications
What Barkers has done well
Barkers has built a loyalty proposition that extends beyond transactional discounts. Barkers & Co includes tier progression, Barkers Dollars, early product access, collaborations, birthday benefits and exclusive experiences.
The brand has also treated mobile wallet as an active customer engagement channel rather than simply a digital replacement for a plastic card. Putting active educational and promotional content on their website as well as in store.
Using location-based notifications for nearby events is particularly relevant to Barkers’ retail model. It gives the brand a practical way to connect digital membership with physical stores, launches and community activity.
Why mobile wallet loyalty matters in fashion retail
Fashion rewards lose influence when customers cannot easily see them.
A mobile wallet card gives customers a more persistent view of their membership and makes rewards easier to discover at the point they are deciding where to shop.
For Barkers, Litecard helps connect Shopify, Klaviyo, Tempo POS and its physical retail network. It improves the visibility of Barkers & Co benefits while giving the brand a direct way to promote relevant events to customers who are nearby.
