Similarly to Neo, PC Optimum app has rewards for purchases.
Let’s take a look at the details to compare.
Key takeaways:
1. Rewards are often associated with individual products (rather than merchants or categories).
Why is this important?
Rewards associated with individual products allow merchants to manage inventory more effectively by incentivizing targeted purchases and not just pushing for increased overall sales volume.
• This is useful when you have perishable products like food that you need to sell before it expires;
• This also helps empty shelves to make room for new products;
• Knowing that one can sell a select product faster with incentives can allow taking advantage of bulk discounts when purchasing inventory;
• Highlighting select products in rewards can be used to charge product manufacturers for extra advertising;
With the Neo app, rewards are largely associated with individual merchants, e.g. “get 3% cashback at 7-eleven”. Rewards don’t suggest users which products to buy. Adding the ability for merchants to code specific products into rewards can be more valuable for merchants and make experience more customized for users. Having specific products creates a different incentive to log in to the app, i.e. users would be logging in to see “what’s on sale” rather than “who has rewards”. The difference is important because “what’s on sale” can always change" while “who has rewards” is not a strong reason to log in to the app frequently. For example, if I know that Boston Pizza has rewards, there is no reason to log in to the app frequently because this is unlikely to change. However, having a specific item on Boston Pizza’s menu that’s highlighted would make users log in the app to see what specifically is rewarded this time.
2. Rewards change periodically.
Why is this important?
Having rotation makes users log in to the app to see what has rewards today/this week/month etc. It is helpful to have a system where rewards are added at some predictable intervals to create a habit for users to check new rewards every day/week/month etc.
Neo doesn’t currently have rotating rewards for the same merchants.
3. The app requires users to generate a bar code for the cashier to scan.
Why is this important?
This is not very convenient from the user perspective as logging in to generate a bar code is a hassle. However, with this requirement users are forced to open the app. When users open the app frequently, they can see all kinds of rewards and offers, not just the ones they intend to use.
Neo does not require users to open the app to use rewards. While this is convenient, users have little reason to log in an explore rewards. By creating a reason to open the app, it is possible to increase the visibility of the rewards offered and their redemption frequency.