B2B Reward-Based Cashback Service System
Multifaceted cashback system with a reward-based module that enables people to receive a payback for making purchases in the partner merchant shops
Industry
FinTech
Team
10 members
Product status
In development
Country
Norway
About a Project
Our client is a Norwegian startup company. The business's main focus is to reward consumers for their purchases made in the partner shops in the Nordic countries. The central concept was to build a platform for both consumers and merchants to make use of the cashback services. The company sought external assistance from a competent software development team to implement the project on time and within the budget.
Goals set to Cleveroad
Provide the customer with comprehensive IT consulting services to deliver the cashback platform within the specified timeframes
Perform complete UI design of software to be appealing and user-friendly for the target audience (consumers and merchants) and worthily compete in the market
Provide the customer with IT team augmentation services to quickly involve specialized professionals in product development
Solutions we've delivered
Conducting deep analysis of the customer’s requirements, existing wireframes, and the initial project plan to outline the scope of work; preparing a new project implementation plan that considers a reasonable budget and adheres to a restricted timeline
Designing all visual elements and creating an intuitive and one-of-a-kind cash reward platform design that interprets and responds to the customers brand vision
Assembling a team of skilled and experienced IT experts (based on the project’s requirements and required knowledge) to quickly jump-start the project
Results for the Customer
A full scope of expert IT consulting services that allowed the customer to prioritize the system functionality and develop a bespoke and highly competitive cashback service ecosystem within the initial timelines in mind
The new UI design concept was approved by the customer and fully interprets and reflects the product’s vision. The business received the design that helps to enhance user experience and retention within the rewards platform
Appealing to staff augmentation services from Cleveroad allowed the client to swiftly onboard an expert tech team. This approach enabled the business to save funds by engaging the necessary number of skilled resources when it’s needed
Business Challenges
Our customer, a Norwegian entrepreneur, lit up an idea for creating a solution to offer people an opportunity to earn money back for making their online purchases at the in-store partner shops. The solution concept aligns the cashback and charity rewards: users can convert the earned percentages into bank accounts or donate them (part or all) to the partnered charities. By the time the customer asked for estimation from Cleveroad, they had been working on the project with another local tech firm for 3 months. The issue was that the local vendor couldn't meet the initial project timeline (12 months for the first development phase) and provide timely deliverables during the first 3 months. That’s why the customer started to search for another IT company with a solid software engineering background to:
Expedite the delivery of the cashback platform to end-users. Form an outstaff team with the necessary skills and integrate into the project swiftly. It was required to build the platform's first version by the initially set deadline. The promised features had to be delivered on time to ensure the solution launch followed the planned business activities.
Optimizing the budget with a focus on priority features. Develop a project implementation plan, considering a reasonable budget, time shortage, and all functionality requested. It was necessary to streamline the development budget by prioritizing features for the cashback system to deliver the most value and impact within the allocated financial resources.
Set the product apart through a well-designed UI. Create cash reward software with a competitive, distinctive user interface to stand out in the crowded market and grasp valuable market share. We had to create an intuitive platform design, so the users could quickly understand how to receive cashback, leverage rewards, and navigate through the system comfortably.
Project in Details
Business Architecture
- Mobile application for users to receive financial incentives for making purchases in the partner merchant shops. The individuals obtain a monetary percentage of the amount they spend on products or services back to their accounts. The users can review the actual offers and challenges and receive a cashback to their account or charity rewards after the corresponding purchases.
- Web solution (website and a Merchant web panel) to fulfill the needs of the users, merchants, and the overall ecosystem. A website submits general details about the platform, its objective, and how users can make use of it. A dedicated panel for merchants is made for creating, managing, and updating their special offers. Merchants can initiate promotion campaigns to attract more consumers.
- The web-based Admin Panel is developed as a control hub to oversee, manage, and monitor the cashback service platform. It includes all the necessary functionality and users' activities related to the administration of the whole ecosystem, including user and merchant management, payment management, website content administration, transaction monitoring, and more.
Product Essentials
Offers and challenges are promotional campaigns launched by merchants. A merchant launches an Offer campaign defining its conditions (%-based cashback, value-based cashback, charity reward) and start/end dates for the campaign. Additionally, merchants can add a Challenge to the existing campaign (revenue-based). It’s complementary to the main Offer campaign, so it cannot be launched as a standalone campaign. Participation in campaigns is free; users just need to use their registered Visa card for payments in partner merchant shops to receive their rewards in the platform wallet.
Charity rewards allow users to donate a part or all of their earned rewards to the partnered charity organizations. When starting a campaign, a merchant can select this type of reward offered to their customers. In this case, a reward for the purchase is donated automatically to the current charity organization that spends this money on the development of education in the local community. A charity reward is shown as a representation of the number of educational infrastructure improvements made possible through donations.
Referral program is available in the solution. Users can participate in the referral program and receive a bonus for recommending the platform to a friend (a new user) or a business (a new merchant). This feature aims to motivate users to be active, driving platform success through user acquisition, engagement, and trust building.
Campaign management functionality allows merchants to make, personalize, and monitor diverse campaigns. They can generate cashback offers, defining the terms and conditions, such as the percentage of cashback, duration of the promotion, and more.
Report functionality made it possible to create and use reports based on different campaign-related parameters like campaign KPI, target group, target demographics, and more. Transaction reports come as a standalone report type showing various transactions with statuses displayed and providing the ability to download CSV format reports.
Insights dashboards are created to give merchants a clear understanding of how their cashback offers and marketing campaigns are performing. It's represented by KPI charts and widgets:
- KPI charts display statistics parameters related to revenue, transactions, customers, costs, etc., and can be viewed on the merchant dashboard and in merchant offer campaigns.
- Widgets are shown on the merchant dashboard and can vary: KPI widget (revenue, transactions, customers, costs), transactions widget, campaign Cost widget, top performers widget.
A user wallet serves as a tool for handling and employing earned incentives. A user will have access to their own platform wallet to manage and employ earned financial incentives easily. Charity rewards are shown for the whole period of platform usage. Listings of rewarded transactions are stated additionally.
Users can transfer cashback to their bank accounts thanks to integration with Stripe. If users participate in the charity campaigns, all cashback from these campaigns will be donated to the charitable organizations.
Map and geofencing integration makes it possible to view shops with active offers on the map. Additionally, this functionality allows locating both businesses and users on map. This drives support for local businesses and motivates users to examine nearby opportunities for cashback rewards.
If users are in proximity to the shop with the active campaigns, the app will provide a timely push notification about a nearby offer. This enhances communication and keeps users informed about cashback opportunities
A web admin panel is established to handle, monitor, and control various platform aspects. Cashback platform admin conducts platform administration by managing users and merchants, reviewing transaction reports, and taking care of system content management.
The Admin ensures that only authorized users have access to confidential information and functionalities, increasing platform security. System administrators also can access analytics and reporting tools to monitor solution performance, user engagement, and cashback trends.
Development in Detail
- We kicked off cooperation with a 2-week Consultancy phase. Our team worked through wireframes and a ready project plan and verified customer requirements for adding new features and integrations. Based on analysis, our experts made a decision to rewrite the solution from scratch. As the initial scope was too big for the strict timeframes, we split the process into two parts: to launch the solution MVP with core functionality and then gradually add new features and possibilities for both business and users.
- It was challenging for our clients to decide what functions to focus on as they wanted to launch the product with all the features at once. But, we have found a solution by applying different prioritization techniques. We prioritized the scope together with the Product Owners to reveal what features should come first and which can be added later. As a result, our experts prepared a new project implementation plan, including new features and milestone prioritization to save time. We also estimated product cost and recommended team composition according to the project's requirements.
- We had to develop a new project implementation plan to meet initially planned timelines. The concern was that the client had already lost 3 months, and their initial plan was to launch the solution within 12 months of development. To address this issue, our team crafted a new project plan, keeping in mind a reasonable budget, shortage of time, and all additional features requested. We also provided the client with an outstaff team of seasoned software development experts who could jump into the project in the shortest possible terms.
- One of the tech challenges was Visa integration to transfer the cashback rewards to the client's bank accounts. Our experts implemented functionality to connect Visa cards and mechanisms to retrieve all transaction data. It is enabled to fit the requirements related to the Visa Offers Platform and gather transaction information. Another issue was to implement metrics analysis in a platform. Together with the client, we defined key metrics and KPIs related to transactions made during the platform usage and integrated analytics tools to enable the collection and analysis of data. Our specialists also added data visualization tools to visualize critical insights within the Merchant Portal.
- During the process, both the client and Cleveroad were focused on platform design. The business needed a design that would hit the market and meet all their expectations. The clients had wireframes, but also, there were many new ideas for the project that they wanted to test and implement. Firstly, we deeply studied the existing wireframes and verified customer demands for each single screen provided. Then, our design team made 3 variants of the Design concept considering clients' product vision and popular designs present on the market.
Technology stack
The technology stack was selected according to the project's requirements and business logic
Web Stack
Frontend
Backend
Mobile Stack
Cross-platform
Architecture
Integrations
AWS Infrastructure
Results Obtained
Budget efficiency thanks to fast team engagement
The velocity of the delivered solution was performed by integrating an outstaff team into the project within a short timeframe. Regarding budgeting, our team helped the business save funds as we provided only the necessary team members, resulting in resource allocation flexibility. Specific project roles and responsibilities were covered by clients alone, and they didn't have to pay for unnecessary specialists
Fast project velocity due to milestone prioritization
Thanks to our team's strategic planning and prioritization techniques, the clients could launch the first version of its cashback platform within the initial project milestones. Now, the business can engage early users, win their loyalty, and create a community around their service. In the future, clients plan to continue to evolve the platform and implement more advanced functionality in cooperation with Cleveroad
Competitive cashback platform that attracts users
Thanks to our joint work, the clients got a cashback platform with a user-friendly and appealing design, leading to increased user acquisition. Simple navigation and incorporation of social responsibility initiatives (charity rewards) allowed the service to effectively compete in the market. The allure of receiving cashback or rewards motivates users to pick the platform for online purchases in partner shops
