PIING
Introducing Piing: beyond the transaction
Recognise the customer, understand what matters and give them a reason to return. Meet Piing, Piing: Intelligence, Piing: Alerts and Retail ID, then choose a starting point.
In this article
A customer is more than their last order.
A regular walks into your store. They have bought online, joined your loyalty programme and saved something they want to try. They know your brand. Does your store know them?
For many retailers, that relationship is spread across a commerce platform, a loyalty account, a wishlist and a CRM. The order is recorded. The conversation before the purchase, the visit without one and the reason to return can be harder to see.
Piing connects those moments. A customer carries a branded membership in their Wallet or on a physical card, identifies themselves in store, and leaves a recognised visit on the record. Your team gets the context you choose. Your connected tools get the next event. The relationship continues, even when the till never opens.
Four moments that change when the store can recognise them.
The arrival
They are a stranger until someone recognises a face, or until they buy.
A scan or tap records the visit before the till opens.
The conversation
Points, saved items and history sit in different tools.
Membership, saved items and connected fields are ready when the conversation starts.
The next step
The website never hears that they came in.
The visit can reach the CRM flows you already run.
The picture
No purchase, no record of the visit.
See who came in, and which orders followed.
You do not have to replace the stack to get that. Commerce, loyalty and CRM stay where they are. You choose the journey, what the team should see, and what happens next.
Different jobs. One customer relationship.
One relationship, three jobs. Piing recognises them in store. Piing: Intelligence makes the record useful. Piing: Alerts gives the website a proper home for updates. They are separate Shopify apps, so start with the job that matters now and add the next when you have a use for it. Retail ID takes the same membership and recognition to stores that are not on Shopify.
Recognise them in store.
Branded Wallet passes, physical membership cards, recognised visits and context in Shopify POS.
Make the record useful.
Turn selected Shopify data into customer fields you can review and use in segments, Flow and connected tools.
Give updates a place.
A targeted notification feed in your storefront, with audience controls, timing and campaign reporting.
Keep your retail stack.
The non-Shopify version of Piing. Scope membership and recognition around your existing customer systems.
One shop can start with a Wallet pass and a staff scan. Online only? Use Piing: Intelligence or Piing: Alerts on its own. Several stores? Pilot one location before the rest. You do not need the whole suite to get value from one product.
Follow the visit, beyond the front door.
Picture Sofia arriving at the Soho store. Her Wallet QR is scanned, Piing finds the matching customer and a check-in records the store, time and recognition route. Staff can also use Piing Counter in Shopify POS to find and check in a customer who does not have their pass to hand.
Connected loyalty puts her points and tier in front of the team. A supported wishlist brings saved products into the conversation, with a local-stock check. Where both apps are installed, selected Piing: Intelligence fields give staff a better opening. Use a likely preference to start the conversation. Do not let it replace asking her.
The visit is recorded.
- Store
- Soho
- Recognition
- Wallet QR
A visit linked to the customer
Membership is ready.
- Points
- 1,840
- Source
- Connected loyalty
Your programme keeps its rules
Something to start with.
- Size
- M
- Local stock
- Available at Soho
Selected context for the team
The conversation continues.
- Destination
- Your configured flow
- Timing
- Your CRM rules
Your consent and sending controls
After she leaves, the visit can reach the CRM flows you already run. A purchase and a visit with no purchase deserve different follow-ups, under your audience, consent and timing rules. Your loyalty provider still owns the balance and the reward rules. A visit reward, where the connection supports one, is a switch you turn on yourself.
Reporting connects recognised visits to eligible later orders within your chosen attribution window. That helps you understand the path from store to purchase, including orders placed online. A linked order shows an association with the visit; it does not establish that the visit or message created an extra sale. See the connection directory and Piing reporting overview.
Make the membership feel like your brand.
Give the membership your name. Start from a real programme: connected loyalty, store credit, a tier, or simply who they are. Points are optional. Logo, artwork, colour, then only the fields that earn their place. A name, a real balance and a clear QR beat a pass crowded with labels.
One member.
More than one way to carry it.
Apple Wallet, Google Wallet and a physical card can connect to the same customer.
Piing issues and signs Apple and Google Wallet passes with its own credentials. A brand that needs passes under its own accounts can bring them. Customers add a pass to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet without a separate Piing app. The two platforms have their own layouts, so design and check each one. A physical metal or plastic card can link to the same member. It can use NFC, a printed Piing QR, or both.
Choose the recognition route that fits the store: a staff scan in Shopify POS, a tablet kiosk, a printed QR sign, or a physical card on a supported Piing Tap Box. QR is the starting point on both Wallet platforms. Apple Wallet phone taps require the relevant approval and compatible reader; the Piing Google route currently uses QR. A nearby Wallet suggestion is not a recorded visit: recognition happens when a supported check-in is completed.
For a physical card, Piing Studio brings templates, artwork, personalisation, quantity and delivery into the design workflow. Discuss print layers and material treatments through the production brief, review the proof and confirm the quote before production. Hardware and physical cards are priced separately from the app subscription. Explore the recognition methods and hardware.
Push notifications need a reason.
The pass is how you reach them between visits, with a reason. A new membership, an accepted check-in, a visit milestone or a saved item back in stock: write it in your voice, switch on the trigger and set how often it can send. Wishlist back-in-stock and price-drop messages need a supported wishlist connected first.
Something they saved.
Available again.
- Trigger
- Supported wishlist back-in-stock event
- Message
- Your wording and frequency rules
- Destination
- Their installed Wallet pass
A reason to reconnect, tied to something they already wanted.
Apple Wallet can show a change message when a field on an installed pass updates. Google Wallet uses supported messages to the installed pass. Each platform controls the final appearance and delivery, alongside the customer’s notification settings. A request accepted by a platform is not proof that someone saw or opened it.
Not every change needs a ping. Points and tier can update on the pass without interrupting anyone. The notification hub shows what went out and what was held, so the pace stays yours.
Wallet messages belong to Piing. The Piing: Alerts storefront feed and its optional browser push are separate channels, with different audiences and permissions. Choose the place that suits the message instead of sending every update everywhere. Explore Wallet push notifications and their delivery controls.
Turn the evidence into useful fields.
The orders are full of signals your team will never have time to read one by one. Piing: Intelligence turns selected Shopify order and product data into fields they can use: preferences, buying patterns, and the context a conversation or a campaign actually needs.
- Preferred category
- Knitwear
AI-inferred · Reviewed against your threshold- Purchase frequency
- Regular buyer
Calculated from order history- Where to use them
- Your existing tools
Shopify segments · Flow · Connected apps
Some fields are calculated; others are AI-inferred. Piing: Intelligence includes 22 ready-made fields, and you choose which to run. Review the evidence and confidence, set the threshold for inferred values, and control which outputs reach Shopify customer metafields. Optional first-party browsing signals follow consent and identity matching; an anonymous page view is not automatically a known customer.
Those selected fields can work in Shopify segments, Flow and compatible connected tools. With both apps installed and selected fields enabled in Piing POS, relevant context can also reach the store team. Start with a few fields that answer a real question, check the results and expand when the labels are useful for your category.
Piing: Intelligence works independently of a store-membership programme. Its plans measure successful customer profile refreshes, so consider how often the data needs updating as well as the size of your audience. Explore Piing: Intelligence or read how the analysis works.
Give online updates a home.
A launch, a restock or early access for members needs more than another banner. Piing: Alerts adds a notification feed to your Shopify storefront: a bell opens the updates relevant to the shopper, in an experience shaped by your theme and the card formats you choose.
Create the content, choose the eligible audience and control when it appears. Templates and different card formats support product picks, announcements and other updates. Frequency limits, spacing and stopping after a purchase can keep the feed useful. Reporting shows impressions, clicks and attributed orders. An attributed order is not the same as incremental lift from a held-back control.
One feed. A separate push option.
Piing: Alerts’ optional browser push sends public announcements to shoppers who explicitly subscribe, subject to browser and device support. Personalised or restricted feed cards are not broadcast to that subscriber list.
Use Piing: Alerts when the website needs a home for launches, restocks and member access. Use a Wallet message when the membership is the right place to reach them. Each product does its own job. Together they cover the visit and the site.
Not on Shopify? Keep your platform.
Not on Shopify? Stay where you are. Retail ID is Piing for the rest of retail: branded Wallet membership and recognition, scoped to the stack you already run. Your commerce, CRM or membership platform stays the source of truth.
Start by agreeing where the customer identity lives, which fields staff should see and where the visit should go. Centra and Salesforce CRM identity connections are read-only. Define write-back and other destinations in the project scope rather than assuming they come with the connection.
A useful Retail ID project defines more than a connector: it covers the customer match, store experience, device routes, staff access, delivery responsibilities and ongoing support. Prove the complete journey in a pilot before expanding it. Explore Retail ID and its connection routes.
Start with the next useful step.
Start from what is missing. Recognition, customer fields and storefront updates are different problems. Pick one outcome, connect only what it needs, and agree how you will know it worked.
One store, one first step.
Start with Piing Wallet QR passes and a staff scanning route. Rehearse the customer match and the fallback before adding hardware.
Online needs attention first.
Choose Piing: Intelligence for customer fields, or Piing: Alerts for a storefront feed. Neither requires launching an in-store membership programme.
Several stores, one programme.
Pilot the complete journey in one location. Agree staff access, devices, integrations, support and reporting before expanding.
A different retail stack.
Start with Retail ID. Map the original customer record, the recognition route and the events your existing systems will receive.
For a rollout, test the everyday journey and the awkward cases: a long name, a missing pass, an unknown code, an unavailable connection and a staff member using the fallback. Agree who owns the programme, which devices each location uses and what support looks like. Scale a working experience rather than adding complexity to an untested one.
The visit gets a record. The team gets a way in. The relationship gets somewhere to go next, and your existing tools stay in the picture. Book a demo, see pricing, or browse the setup guides and pick the first step that earns its place.