Published on the 01/07/2013 | Written by Newsdesk
Retailers that want to lure customers with discount vouchers are the target for a locally developed iPhone app that can alert customers as they near a bricks-and-mortar store…
More than 100,000 people have so far downloaded the Australia-developed Vouchr iPhone app which allows them to collect and then redeem discount coupons. Vouchr, which was set up in February, is currently only available for iPhones although an Android version is expected to be released in about two months.
According to Vouchr CEO Chris Newell, US surveys have found that while only one percent of paper discount vouchers are ever redeemed, 10 percent of coupons stored on mobiles are used. He believes Australians will prove just as enthusiastic adopters, driving more business to bricks-and-mortar retailers.
He said that drink retailer Chatime, one of the early adopters of the Vouchr service, saw its online coupon campaign go viral among Sydney’s Chinese community, leading to eight percent of the company’s daily gross revenues being driven by Vouchr redemptions.
To use the service consumers download the free iPhone app and then scan the offers that are available, and save any that they are interested in to the PassBook on their iPhone. “Passbook then allows for a location-based reminder, or a reminder about the number of days to expiration (of the offer),” said Newell. Most early adopters of the service have consumers redeem the offer by simply showing their stored discount voucher to the sales assistant.
Vouchr is, however, trialling a system with ice cream vendor Moochi that will close the loop on the voucher by having the cashier scan the QR code on the discount coupon on the smartphone which will register it for the retailer and cancel that coupon.
Newell said that early adopters of the service – 25 in all, including Baskin Robbins, Domino Pizza and Taronga Zoo – have either had free trials of the service to validate its capability, or paid Vouchr on a cost-per-save of discount coupons. Ultimately however Newell’s business model is that merchants using the system will pay for it through a clip on the ticket every time a coupon is redeemed.
