Nike looks to boost rewards for app-using customers

Nike is aiming to increase the rewards offered by its Nike Plus app after discovering that its users spend 40% more on the company's products than other customers. Nike is testing a range of perks designed to reward the loyalty of its app users, including vending machines that offer free products as gifts and an instant checkout service that would allow shoppers to skip the queue at its store on Fifth Avenue in New York.

Nike is ramping up its loyalty program as it finds that customers who use its app are not just loyal but also big spenders.

The shoemaker is testing a slew of extra perks to its Nike Plus app — including vending machines that disperse free stuff — as it finds that those users spend 40 percent more than other customers, according to Nike’s global vice president of direct stores, Cathy Sparks.

Indeed, about 50 percent of the transactions at its two flagship mega-stores in New York City and Shanghai — which both opened last fall — are coming from customers who use its app, Sparks said at the WWD Retail 2030 conference on Wednesday.

That has the sneaker giant beefing up the app, which already gives customers early access to new products, free shipping and VIP treatment in its stores, including a separate entrance at the Manhattan mega-store.

It’s testing instant checkout in three stores, including the 68,000-square-foot location on Fifth Avenue, allowing Nike Plus customers to skip the checkout line.

And at its Melrose, Calif., store it’s testing a vending machine that rewards members with free gifts every two weeks.

Nike is also making “large investments” in technology that will allow its employees to look at customers’ past purchases, favorite sports and any other information they have shared about themselves on the app to offer them personalized service, Sparks said.

“Loyalty programs are on fire right now,” NPD sports analyst Matt Powell told The Post. “Brands and retailers are discovering their best customers are high-leverage,” he said.

The changes come as Nike seeks to take greater control of its relationship with its customers by, for example, limiting the number of retailers that can peddle its wares.

Last year, the Beaverton, Ore.-based company told Wall Street analysts it is culling 25 percent of the retail outlets that sell its merchandise.