Wazzup Pilipinas!
E-commerce has increasingly changed the way people shop for consumer goods. Online stores like Lazada and Zalora in particular are favored in large part by Filipinos due to the huge discounts they offer on top of the added convenience of delivering purchased goods directly in their doorsteps.
Since its launch last year, the Philippine franchise of Southeast Asia's largest and fastest growing online loyalty platform has been making a good thing even better for thousands of online shoppers. Offering rebates they call “cashbacks,” ShopBack has been returning up to 30 percent of what consumers pay for a particular item or service. This is on top of any discount the online store is already offering.
Such cashbacks are not only given to shoppers of Lazada and Zalora but also to over 350 other popular online shopping destinations.
“We at ShopBack not only help Filipinos get the best deals and discounts, but we even give cashbacks which is actually giving your cash back,” explains ShopBack Philippines country head Kristina Ay-ay.
“Here’s how it works. When you shop online at say, Lazada or Zalora through ShopBack, a portion of your purchase is returned to you within 48 hours in your ShopBack account even if your mode of payment is cash on delivery to the store. This translates to extra, unlimited savings whenever you shop online.”
Ay-ay said the cashback is made possible through commissions earned by ShopBack from partner merchants with every completed sales transaction. ShopBack then shares a portion of its commission with the shopper.
“Our partner merchants reward us with a commission for referring you to shop on their site. But instead of keeping the commission to ourselves, we are sharing them with our consumers,” Ay-Ay pointed out.
Although ShopBack employs a loyalty scheme similar to other point system rewards programs and credit card rebates, what sets ShopBack apart from the rest is that the cashbacks are immediately credited to registered users.
Once the amount of cashback accumulates to a certain point, it is then deposited to the shopper’s bank, GCash or PayPal account which he or she can either withdraw or use as payment for future purchases.
This sharing system, developed by six enterprising individuals in Singapore, began when ShopBack was founded in 2014. Following the very favorable public reception there, ShopBack was subsequently introduced in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines and will be launching in Thailand within the year.
Now with over 1,300 global and local e-retailers in the Southeast Asian region, ShopBack is now the leading player in its field.
With almost half a million subscribers within a span of one year, ShopBack is obviously a big hit for Filipino consumers. But Ay-ay is not stopping there as she intends to make ShopBack an even more indispensable shopping portal and further evangelize on the benefits of its cashback system.
ShopBack will soon provide aggregated reviews and head-to-head comparisons in order to provide consumers with more informed decisions when they shop on the site.
“We want every Filipino to be able to save as much as they can when shopping online. That’s ShopBack’s promise,” Ay-ay concluded.
Indeed, smart shopping has never been this rewarding.
Ross is known as the Pambansang Blogger ng Pilipinas - An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Professional by profession and a Social Media Evangelist by heart.
