Swapi - customer loyalty made better

by Startacus Admin

 

The lowdown on Swapi, the startup that enables users to swap their loyalty rewards, cashback & gift cards between brands.

Everyone likes loyalty points. They mean that every now and then we can get a free coffee, a free flight, a free something from the places that we frequent. We probably frequent these places because we like them, obviously, and so getting something for free is a simple and effective way to incentivise us to keep up our loyalty, make us feel appreciated, and perhaps shop there even more often, as well as to ensure that we are less likely to forget about that place or take our custom elsewhere. 

It is a low cost system for the retailer that goes a long way. Of course, the downside for the customer is that loyalty points, in most cases, expire. We’ve probably all been in a situation where we think we’ll buy something that’s a little more expensive than we’d like only because we have loyalty points built up, only to find that those points have expired, and so we take it back out of our basket. We lose out on that thing we wanted and the retailer loses out on a sale. But what if we had points built up for another retailer that we’re not using, and could bring those over?

London-based startup Swapi wants to do just this - allow you to take your reward points earned in any of their partner retailers and use them in any of the others. Swapi says there’s £6 billion of unused loyalty rewards in the UK, and much of this will expire without ever being used. But by using their platform, you will unlock a whole digital high street of retailers across a wide range of sectors that you can use your loyalty points in at will. 

This diverse range of brands is made possible because of the startup’s partnership with Eagle Eye, a leading rewards aggregator that gives them access to over 100 brands in the UK alone. This is beneficial to all parties, because the customer gets to spend their earned points wherever is most beneficial to them at the time, the original issuer reduces its outstanding points balance and doesn’t have to take that small hit when the points are redeemed, and the new redeemer gets a potentially new customer.

Just recently, they completed a Crowdcube campaign with £360,745 investment, 120% of their target. This, with their additional partnerships with Fidel and Network B, and with their bringing on Dragon and previous investor Brian Dunne as their CFO, has put them in a strong starting position ahead of their September launch.

 

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• #retail
• #loyalty
• #rewards
• #commerce

Published on: 20th August 2021