Our products are handmade – our customer relationships should feel that way too. When you take care of people, they take care of you. Rivo helped us reward loyalty in the same spirit we build our bags: honest, warm, and built to last.
A brand that already knew the meaning of Loyalty
By the time Portland Leather Goods came to us, they didn’t need help creating loyalty, they’d already mastered it. Their challenge was simpler and harder at the same time: finding a system flexible enough to keep pace with their creativity.
Their previous vendor wasn’t built for a brand like PLG. Updates required support tickets. Tier changes took days to push live. Referral tracking didn’t fit how they wanted to reward generosity. Even analytics stopped short, showing points and balances without tying loyalty behavior back to actual revenue. “Our customers are wildly loyal,” said Matt Fey, Director of Marketing at Portland Leather Goods. “But our tools weren’t. We needed a platform that could grow with us, not hold us back.” PLG’s team moves fast. They experiment with Double Points Days, surprise perks, app launches, and playful campaigns. They wanted to connect loyalty directly into that rhythm – to test, measure, and learn in real time.
By early 2025, the gap between what they imagined and what their system could do had grown too wide. Even with a community that loved them, the brand couldn’t express that love back in the ways it wanted to. “We had this incredible group of people that we couldn’t properly celebrate,” said Matt “Every time we tried something new, the platform made it harder.”
Laying a better foundation with Rivo
When we sat down with the team, we saw what immediately is that they needed something strong enough to handle scale and personal enough to feel handmade.
When we first met the team at Portland Leather Goods, we understood almost immediately what made their brand different. Every piece has its own character – scuffs, grain, tiny imperfections that make it real. The people behind the brand have the same grounded energy.
There’s an entire online community – The PLG Insiders with 191,000 members where customers post photos of their collections, name their bags, write poems about them, and help newcomers find the right shade of “Almost Perfect.” When a brand already has that kind of connection, technology has one job: stay out of the way and make it easy to reward it. That’s where our story together begins.
Our customers are wildly loyal – but our tools weren’t. We needed a platform that could grow with us, not hold us back. Every time we tried something new, the system made it harder. Loyalty should move at the speed of our creativity.
Rebuilding Loyalty from the inside out
From the start, the migration was a shared effort. Our engineers worked closely with their marketing and ecommerce teams to move every data point, points balances, VIP tiers, redemptions, accurately and without disruption. On launch day, customers simply signed in and found their accounts right where they left them. “The migration process felt like a partnership,” said Matt. “Rivo handled the heavy lifting. We didn’t lose a single balance, and our members didn’t lose trust.”
Once live, the PLG and Rivo teams redesigned PLG Rewards to mirror the brand’s voice and sense of play.
- VIP tiers that advance by points, spend, or orders: letting every kind of customer feel recognized.
- Earning actions that celebrate the community itself: joining the Insiders group, following on Instagram, downloading the app, writing reviews, and birthdays that actually feel like gifts.
- Referrals built around generosity: Give 30%, Get $20
- Unified POS and online rewards: finally connecting retail in-store experiences with eCommerce.
- Robust Analytics: that link every reward, redemption, and referral to measurable revenue.
For PLG’s team, the change was immediate. They could make updates themselves, test promotions in real time, and finally bring loyalty into the same conversations as product drops, marketing emails, and SMS campaigns.
“We went from waiting to shipping,” Fey said. “Tier changes and promos that used to take weeks now go live the same day.” Operationally, the shift also mattered. Portland Leather Goods cut their platform costs by 50% while gaining visibility and control they’d never had before.
Loyalty, built into the app experience with Fuego
After rebuilding their loyalty program, PLG launched their mobile app on Apple and Google powered by Fuego. Customers can now check their points balance, redeem rewards, and access perks without leaving the shopping experience using the one click integration.
The integration gives PLG’s most active customers – many of whom shop through the app – the same loyalty features they’d have on the site. It also lets the team layer loyalty into product drops and promotions in real time. Screenshots of the app experience for Rivo Loyalty on Portland Leather's mobile app can be seen above.
A Loyalty Program that feels handmade
With PLG Rewards on Rivo, the brand’s connection with its customers has only deepened. The team now uses Rivo’s analytics to inform nearly every campaign. They can identify when members are most active, where referral activity peaks, and how point expirations affect re-engagement.
Performance Highlights (Q1, Q2, Q3 2025)
- 17.4% of total store revenue tied to loyalty orders
- 53.3% points redemption rate
- Over 250K new members joined
- Nearly 1 Million active VIP customers
- Over $100K in referral revenue
- Activated customers spend 6% more on average
- 28.7% account activation rate across all shoppers
“The data confirmed what we already believed,” said Fey. “When you take care of people, they take care of you. Rivo made that visible.” “We can literally see the rhythm of our customers,” “Redemptions, tier jumps, repeat purchases – it’s all right there. It’s made us sharper.”
For us, watching the PLG team use the platform is what stands out most. They treat loyalty like an extension of their brand – flexible, human, and constantly improving.
“Our products are handmade – our customer relationships should feel that way too,” Fey said. “Rivo helped us reward loyalty in the same spirit we build our bags: honest, warm, and meant to last.”
Now, PLG is exploring new ways to keep that community feeling fresh. The team is experimenting with tier-specific Double Points Days, milestone rewards for long-time customers, and collection-based multipliers that tie loyalty directly to new product drops.
A partnership built on craft
Working with Portland Leather Goods reminded us why we do what we do. What they needed was a partner who could match their craftsmanship with technology that felt just as considered.
Today, PLG Rewards runs on Rivo with the same attention to detail that defines every bag, wallet, and accessory the brand makes. It’s a loyalty program that moves at the speed of creativity and grows stronger with every interaction – proof that when you pair craft with flexibility, great things last.
