Lantern, the new loyalty platform for Shopify, helps brands increase repeat purchases with customizable rewards, referrals, and AI-driven insights.
When Andrew Lissimore, founder of Headphones.com, realized he was spending too much on ads to acquire customers, he started looking for ways to retain existing buyers. After exploring the Shopify ecosystem, he found most loyalty programs were tier- or spend-based — too limited for his needs. So, he decided to build his own solution.
What started as a tool for Headphones.com grew into Lantern, a startup that helps Shopify merchants manage loyalty, referrals, and customer accounts without extra coding.
From Pain Point to Product
Initially, Lantern combined multiple apps to reward customers for spending, referrals, and engagement. But managing different systems created user experience challenges and diluted brand identity.
Lissimore brought in Shopify designers Kyle Peatt and Dominic McPhee, the minds behind Shopify’s Polaris design system, to build a native, customizable loyalty platform. Both later joined Lantern as co-founders, with Peatt as chief design and product officer and McPhee as chief technology officer. Today, Lantern has eight full-time employees.
How Lantern Works
Lantern allows merchants to reward customers for repeat purchases, referrals, and engagement activities like participating in forums. Integration is simple — no extra code required — and features like wallet functionality appear directly at checkout, creating a seamless experience.
For Headphones.com, Lantern boosted repeat purchase rates from 30% to 50% and cut the average time between purchases from 198 days to 98 days. This testing ground helped Lantern fine-tune its platform for other businesses.
Expanding Beyond Headphones
Lantern now serves clients including skincare brand Counter, which earns over $200 million annually, and footwear brand Vessi. The startup also built tools to measure retention effectively and demonstrate ROI for its customers.
To grow further, Lantern raised $3.1 million in seed funding led by Salesforce Ventures, with participation from Sidekick Partners, Day One Ventures, and investors like Vessi’s Tony Yu. Lantern competes with other loyalty platforms like LoyaltyLion and Yotpo, but its founders’ unique experience in both ecommerce operations and Shopify design gives it a competitive edge.
Rob Keith, partner at Salesforce Ventures, said:
“Lantern combines real merchant experience with deep platform expertise. Features like seamless wallet integration make the experience native rather than bolted on, helping both consumers and brands.”
Looking ahead, Lantern plans to leverage AI to provide insights and recommendations around customer retention, helping merchants keep buyers engaged and boost lifetime value.
