Overview
Customers may earn points from scanning the purchasing receipts when using the Fetch Rewards shopping app for Android and iOS smartphones.
Since its establishment in 2013, the company has created a clear image that it has established itself as a leading reward-based business in the industry. Currently, the firm is worth over $1 billion out of thin air.
Company Profile
| Company Name | Fetch Rewards, Inc. |
| Website | https://www.fetchrewards.com/ |
| Founded | 2013 |
| Founders | Daniel Litvak, Tyler Kennedy, Wes Schroll |
| Key People | Tyler Kennedy – Co-Founder & VP-Operations, Wes Schroll – Co-Founder & CEO, Michael Kent – President & Chief Operating Officer, David Sommer – Chief Customer Officer (CCO) I Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) Heidi Wagner – Vice President Of Engineering |
| Headquarter | Madison, Wisconsin, United States |
| Company Revenue | $100 – $500 Million |
| Key Competitors | Honey, Ibotta, Rakuten and Shopkick. |
What is Fetch Rewards? A Brief History
Fetch Rewards is an online shopping application, allowing users to collect rewards by scanning their receipts.
In general sense, the app is relatively easy to use. To begin with, the users install the application on iOS or Android, depending on their mobile devices.
After that, users take a snapshot of their receipt after registering their account. The platform’s recognized-image tech captures the purchased goods that are point-eligible.
In 2013 in Madison, Wisconsin, Wes Schroll (CEO), Tyler Kennedy, and Daniel Litvak created Fetch Rewards.
Wes came up with the concept for Fetch Rewards while he was a university student at Wisconsin.
At that time, he pursued a degree in Entrepreneurial Studies. However, in 2013, he decided to drop out of college after designing a business portfolio and collecting funds from several organizations and business contests.
The company’s webpage and mobile application went online in 2013 for iOS devices alone. Back in the day, the app’s scanning system was much different from what it is now.
Grocery merchants would set up signage in their storefronts advertising Fetch Rewards to entice consumers to install the app. In addition, the group created a referral scheme that compensated store staff who could persuade customers to install the app.
Nowadays, Fetch has nearly 600 employees working in Chicago, Madison, New York, and San Francisco offices.
How Does Fetch Rewards and What Does it Offer?
When a receipt is scanned, certain point numbers are awarded to the user depending on the quantity and purchased goods. Customers can also earn even more points by purchasing goods from a special promotion.
Users may take photos with their cell phones or utilize the app’s receipt button to gain points. The app also includes unique promotions where consumers can earn extra points, and there are no spending requirements to qualify.
Fetch Rewards app can identify receipts from various stores, including grocery, gas, club, liquor, hardware, or even pet stores.
Besides, users can apply for gift cards at participating retailers like Amazon or Target. Typically, 1000 points equal $1.50.
Fetch Rewards Business Model
Source: Fetch Rewards
Fetch Rewards is a digital shopping app that pays customers to scan their receipts. This is not a novel notion, but the corporation has simplified the procedure to increase user adoption.
As it turns out, hundreds of famous companies, such as Kraft Heinz, AXE, Doritos, Mountain Dew, Ben & Jerry’s, Pepsi, and Lipton, partner with Fetch Rewards.
Moreover, many big partners, like Unilever, MillerCoors, and Kraft Heinz were impressed to work with the app to refurbish the hypothesis. After spending some time developing and improving the product quality, the company began testing its new invention.
Against all odds, during the deployment phase, the firm scanned million receipts, saving consumers a total of $1.4M. This rewarding platform became life in the United States in 2018.
Fetch Rewards Unique Selling Propositions
Fetch Rewards continues to expand, both fundraising and new users. The main contribution of the firm’s success initiates from referrals or users recommending the application to one another. In addition, the entity started to focus on bringing in new partners.
Within a year of its release, the redesigned software had been downloaded over 3-million times. In 2018, the firm finalized its project with $9M in total sales.
For instance, 2020 was a prosperous time for the firm. The new coronavirus’s financial restrictions caused an increase in customers’ rise looking for other methods to spend and save money effectively.
By the same token, Fetch Rewards could obtain further investment rounds because of its consistent growth. SoftBank, among others, invested another $210 million in the firm in March. The firm could secure new relationships with Albertsons, Burger King, Papa John’s, and others throughout the year.
To round off the year, the firm revealed that it had surpassed $100 billion in Gross Merchandise Value (GMV).
How Does Fetch Rewards Make Money?
Fetch Rewards generate money from affiliate business commissions of collaborating brands. Interchange fees provide revenue to the firm to a lesser level. Let’s elaborate on their strategy down below.
Commissions From Affiliates
Affiliate commissions, also called referral fees, account for the majority of revenue.
In a similar way, shoppers who use Fetch Rewards to buy items from participating companies are reimbursed by those brands when they do so. According to the agreement between the parties, the commission is a percentage of the entire purchase price.
This arrangement is advantageous for a wide range of businesses; some gain platform exclusivity, while others appreciate the availability of clear information about what their customers are buying.
Interchange fees
The fact is this app released an interchange fee-free debit card in late 2020. Interchange fees are paid by participating merchants whenever Mastercard debit cards are used. If you use Fetch Rewards to promote your card, you’ll get a cut of the fees you pay.
Fetch Rewards SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis is a simple framework for evaluating a company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Strengths
- User-friendliness: One of the most significant strengths of Fetch Rewards is its user-friendliness and easy-to-use app. Previously, shopping meant physically drifting around a specific location at a specific time.
Buyers can browse, search, compare prices, and purchase things from the comfort of their own homes at any time of day.
Even if teleshopping provides similar benefits, the introduction of the internet has seen a significant shift in consumer behavior away from radio, TV, radio, and print ads.
- Lower Prices: Another crucial advantage of digital buying is that things tend to be less expensive when compared to traditional retail channels.
One reason for this is that the digital shopping platform often includes vendors connecting directly with consumers, eliminating the need for intermediaries like wholesalers.
More than that, online shops often have fewer overheads than brick-and-mortar companies, which must account for rent, employee pay, and other expenses.
- Rewarding Points: Once the users hit specific buying prices, they will be able to accumulate the rewarding points, which they can use to purchase something else available in the app. That means the more they buy, the more points they get.
Weaknesses
- Industry Specific: Some items are better to Fetch Rewards than others. Electronics and gadgets, for instance, are all simple to buy and sell via online sites since clients know they will receive. Some products, however, are far less ubiquitous.
Fashions are the most precise illustration of this. Buyers might find it hard to buy the apparel online because they cannot be sure how it will fit or feel.
Unfortunately, expanding into these industries will be highly challenging for both users and the application.
- Data Manipulation: Aside from outright fraud, a lot can go wrong with online purchasing, especially when it comes to customer data.
With online purchasing, you must provide a lot of sensitive information, such as your payment information, address, and other sensitive personal data. If this information falls into the scammers, the repercussions can be disastrous.
Opportunities
- Increasing Marketplace: The growing market represents one of the most noteworthy prospects for the online shopping business.
As the cost of devices continues to fall, the number of prospective online buyers is expected to rise. Therefore, the number of online shopping apps will increase.
- Grow With Influencers: Numerous internet users utilize their enormous social followers to promote various businesses’ portfolios. These influencers provide astute online businesses with a strong marketing prospect.
While social media platforms are becoming such an integral part of our daily lives, influencers are poised to play a critical role in advertising the products— and online retailers are the right place to capitalize on their income from this strategy.
Threats
- Aggressive Competition: Low barrier to entry leads to a substantial challenge for established vendors. Anybody from anywhere can create a new online business and thrive among other online retail firms.
It is critical to understand that this aspect of competition impacts individual firms rather than the performance of the market platform as a whole.
- Cybercrimes: Cybercriminals may buy things online using other people’s payment data, such as credit or debit cards, bank transfers, or even cryptocurrencies while remaining entirely anonymous.
For this reason, combating online cybercrime is extremely tough, which is why it poses such a significant danger to the sector.