A loyalty points plugin and a smoother shop for a 28,000-product anime store

AniWays is a Portuguese geek store run by collectors, selling figures, statues and trading cards across Portugal and Spain from a WooCommerce catalogue of more than 28,000 products, built with Elementor.

They wanted a loyalty programme that rewards every order and encourages collectors to come back: points that turn into real discounts, higher ranks for their best customers, and double-points campaigns. It had to fit the store's own branding rather than look like a generic rewards plugin.

At the same time, the shop and category pages had Add to Cart problems. Elementor added a redirect to the buttons and out-of-stock products were not handled cleanly in the grid. Later the wishlist icons and wishlist page stopped working. With a catalogue this size, every fix had to stay light so the store stayed fast.

I built AniPoints as a custom WooCommerce plugin. Customers earn points on every order, credited when the order is completed, and 100 AniPoints are worth €1 off a later purchase. Three ranks based on lifetime points reward the most loyal collectors: Explorer earns 1 point per euro, Hunter (from 2,500 points) earns 1.25, and Legend (from 10,000 points) earns 1.5.

New customers get a 500-point welcome bonus on their first order, which can be spent but does not count towards their rank. Refunded items take their points back and adjust rank progress automatically. The store can run double-points campaigns, and the shop team can adjust a customer's balance by hand.

Points appear where shoppers notice them: a live balance in the header, an "Earn 34 AniPoints with this purchase" line on every product page (with a 2× badge during campaigns), and an AniPoints tab in My Account showing the balance, its value in euros, the current rank, progress to the next rank and the full points history.

For the product grid I wrote a small JavaScript and PHP fix that removes Elementor's redirect, recognises out-of-stock products from their links rather than from styling classes, and adds products to the cart in place with AJAX. A first approach that built a stock map in PHP slowed the 28,000-product catalogue badly, so I replaced it with this lightweight check. I also traced and fixed the wishlist, restoring the icons and the wishlist page.

AniWays now runs its own branded loyalty programme, AniPoints, giving collectors a reason to return: every order earns points, ranks reward the best customers and double-points campaigns can be switched on for promotions. Add to Cart works as shoppers expect across the whole catalogue, the wishlist works again, and the store stays fast. AniWays continues to work with me on plugin updates, improvements and new features.