We’re taking a look today at new developments in cashback, loyalty, coupons and vouchers. Rewards are important in loyalty programs and 55% of members want discounts or special offers on products and services. With more than 45 million users, Starbucks‘ loyalty program is among the best. It grew 32% in the past year, handles more than 5 million orders monthly and combines payments, loyalty, rewards and content.
Brands are developing mobile apps but finding engagement and retention to be a growing challenge according to research by Accengage. Orders are up 250% as Paytm rides the wave of digital payments in India. Paytm is testing the e-commerce market with promotions offering 100% cashback and up to 83% discount promotions. What’s a loyal customer worth? One-third of the total spend and 2.92 times more than one-time shoppers says a research report by YotPo. Be sure to get your free copy of this valuable Yotpo’s eCommerce Benchmark Report.
Rewards, Offers Keep Loyalty Program Participation Going
Rewards are a motivator for loyalty program users. In fact, more than half of respondents left a loyalty program because it did not provide rewards or offers that interested them, or because it was too hard to earn points for rewards. Reasons that US Internet Users Have Continued to Participate in a Loyalty Program, Aug 2015 (% of respondents)
Retaining loyalty program members requires different tactics for different audiences, however. Colloquy reported significant differences in what was important to millennials vs. other age groups, for example. Millennials tended to respond well to status-oriented and other nonmonetary loyalty rewards, like having access to member-exclusive products and content. The survey base as a whole was more concerned with the basics of saving money. Via emarketer.com
Starbucks’ Grande Plan: Selling Coffee via Apps
Schultz went on to detail the different ways in which Starbucks is killing it with its digital strategy, and it’s hard to disagree with him. He pointed to Starbucks’ final rollout of its mobile order and pay feature, which lets users order a latte via app and pay even before arriving at any of its 7,500 US stores. According to Schultz, Starbucks is already handling more than 5 million mobile orders per month—and that figure is growing by the hour. The coffee company recently sealed digital deals with The New York Times, Spotify, and Lyft. Schultz boasted that Starbucks’ loyalty program now has 20 million members. And he described the coffee company’s latest on-demand initiatives: Two weeks ago, the company began delivery in the Empire State Building, and it’s launching delivery in Seattle with Postmates later this quarter.
In all sorts of ways, Starbucks is showing that it gets how to integrate the way its business works with the ways consumers want to use their personal tech. Starbucks’ active mobile users, execs revealed, have grown by 32 percent year over year. Starbucks had already reported 9 million customers paying at Starbucks counters with their phones every week, out of 45 million total. In October, mobile payments reached a new milestone, accounting for 21 percent of all Starbucks transactions in the US—momentum that could make even Apple envious. Via wired.com
SMS + App Push=Increased Customer Engagement – Chiefmarketer
As brands continue to drive more of their marketing budgets into mobile app strategies, they enter a unique channel that comes with its own set of challenges. While apps dominate consumers’ mobile time, it is interesting to note that mobile web has both a greater reach and a greater share of mobile sales. Additionally, app usage outside of social, communications, entertainment and navigation remain very low. These various challenges have left marketers searching for solutions to drive downloads, conversions, engagement and ultimately, business results with mobile apps.
One problem that apps face is the reliance on push notifications as the primary means of re-engaging users who have closed the application. According to Brand Quarterly, consumers “opt out” of push notifications approximately 50% of the time, leaving brands with little engagement potential with half their app users. One study by Accengage shows that only 6% of push notifications result in users engaging with the application. This can be attributed to the overwhelming amount of push notifications that consumers receive—conditioning them to decline the opt-in invitiation when they start the app, or to dismiss the push notification without reading them. This results in brands missing out on significant opportunities to engage with their customers. via Chief Marketer
In India’s Brutal Diwali E-Commerce War, Paytm Bets on Digital Wallets as the Transactional Future
Domestic Web retail biggies Flipkart and Snapdeal, backed by global investors like Masayoshi Son, Jack Ma and Yuri Milner, are taking on Amazon India to be India’s default click-buy. And 40% of the country’s annual online spend is at stake during this peak shopping and gifting season. Paytm may have held back, yet its visitors and GMV (gross merchandise value) shot up 2.5 times, piggybacking on rivals’ promotions. “Thank you, my friends,” says Sharma, tongue-in-cheek. (His own marketing efforts were timed to debut just before the three-day festival commences on Nov. 9.)
Paytm is playing differently in many ways. While rivals hawk smartphones and electronics–Flipkart sold a record half-million 4G phones in ten hours during its Big Billion Days Diwali sale–nearly all Paytm’s GMV comes from heftier-margin products in categories like fashion, gardening supplies, auto accessories, and home and kitchen. In lieu of deep discounts, merchants on its platform offer “cash back ” credits back to Paytm’s own digital wallet. Be advised: “ There may be two or five or ten $100 billion e-commerce companies in India in a decade–I don’t know how many, but I want to be one of them,” declares Sharma, from his unadorned offices in dusty, crowded Noida, a New Delhi suburb. Via forbes.com
E-commerce war: Paytm Diwali sale offers 100% cashback on 25 million products
The ecommerce company will also offer up to 83 percent discounts. It is is aiming to become the company with the highest aggregate market revenue in the Indian ecommerce space by March. Via zeenews.india.com
The state of e-commerce in 2015
You’ve probably heard keeping a current customer is more cost-effective than trying to get a new one, but when it comes down to actual spend, just how much is customer loyalty worth? The data shows that it’s worth a businesses’ time to improve customer retention, because returning customers really pay off. Repeating shoppers have spent $356 million during 2014 out of a total of $1.07 billion spent by customers during 2014, which is 33.3 percent of the overall spend.
On average only 15 percent of customers are repeat shoppers, yet these customers account for one-third of the total spend. Returning customers spend 2.92 times more than one-time shoppers, with an average of 41 days between purchases. Via thenextweb.com
That’s it for cashback, ecommerce, mobile and retail news this week. Have a relaxing weekend and we’ll be back Monday with more news you can use.