Phillippines is not a top priority for startups and corporates when they are entering or expanding internally in Southeast Asia. But it’s a market that most of them can’t ignore as the country Las Islas Filipinas has nearly 100M people with English as an official language. And the Philippines is also one of the top social countries in Southeast Asia and even in the world. Let’s catch up with a loyalty reward startup Zap.com.ph’s from Justin Lim’s view. Justin is one of the co-founders and Sales Director of Zap.
Why did you guys come up with Zap idea? And is it related to Philippine customers’ mainstream habit?
A couple of our founders started a deal site awhile back but felt they weren’t giving enough value to their merchants. We then figured how we can provide merchants sales analytics and re-marketing tools to better understand and market to their customers.
We started Zap as a cash-back program because it is already an existing habit of customers wanting discounts. Our novel approach combines a network wide interusage of points thus making it more relevant to our users.
Note: Zap’s tagline is “Get 5% to 20% CashBack at your favorite establishments!”
How about the process for a customer from earning point to getting cash back?
All a customer has to do is to input their mobile number at our terminals in Zap enabled merchants upon check out.
What is the real benefit for merchants?
Merchants get to track relevant customer data that is organized in an online dashboard we give every Zap merchant. They can use this information to send personalized offers to both new and existing customers.
On top of that, Zap creates traffic generating activities both online and on the ground which merchants really appreciate.
What is the most challenging part of Zap business? Any traction you can share?
After sales support is our main focus to maintain a consistent user experience throughout our network.
Thus far we have been growing our merchant base by 30–40 branches every month and our usage stats has been growing by 20% month on month
Some of the most effective marketing channels?
Our main channels are on the ground marketing events, word of mouth and online marketing through partners and social media.
Which category customers like the most? And same question for merchant side
So far users have been favoring food as it has higher frequency of visit. Merchants like being part of a larger network and the promotions they can do with Zap.
What is the average value of order?
Right now we cannot disclose the actual average amount of transactions but feedback from merchants have given us insight that Zap customers spend higher than regular customers typically spend.
What are the top cities for Zap in PH?
So far we are only operational in the Metro Manila area but plan to expand to Cebu and Davao as our highest priorities before the year ends 🙂
We are looking to expand to the ASEAN region in 2015.
Thank you!