MEDIA RELEASE
Tuesday July 22, 2014
The world’s first real-time mobile loyalty solution evolves out of Kiwi ingenuity
A real-time mobile loyalty solution designed for SME retailers and hospitality venues is set to change the in-store and
online retail experience, as we know it.
Collect, which is being officially launched today, uses the power of the cloud, mobile, social and big data.
Retailers often struggle with traditional loyalty schemes because they’re seldom timely, target one to many and are hard
to measure - even digital marketing tools available in this space fall short.
Collect solves these problems because it provides retailers with real-time data about customers and their buying
behaviour by integrating with the retailer's POS (Point-of-Sale system). Having this real-time data at their fingertips
enables retailers to quickly and precisely target and personalise offers in a way that’s not been possible or affordable
for SME’s before.
Latest research shows 81% of customers don’t know the benefit of loyalty rewards or when they will get them. With
Collect customers are rewarded instantly for shopping at the places they love - no cards or QR codes needed. At anytime
they can check their point balance and see what rewards are available including exclusive offers. They choose how they
receive or access this information: in-store, via the web portal, Collect App or through email and social media.
Evolving RewardJunkie!
Wellington based brothers Matt and Brady Thomas first started exploring tech opportunities in response to retailers’
disenchantment with daily deals and later joined with investor Brent Spicer to create hospitality app Rewardjunkie!
Collect is the result of the trio evolving and testing real-time mobile loyalty with retailers and consumers over the
last two years.
To establish the Collect brand globally, the company has secured the backing of a number of investors including Peter
Biggs (Clemenger BBDO Melbourne), Paula Jackson (ex-Xero), All Black Piri Wepu and US advisor to start-ups Kyle Enright
(ex-Google).
Collect CEO Brent Spicer says momentum is building. ”We’ve received fantastic market validation from both retailers and
partners, who when we demonstrate Collect, say that we have approached this problem in a completely different way from
anything else available in the market, globally. This is proven by our integration with international A-list players
like Vend, Kounta, Shopify and MailChimp, ”
“We’re on the way to being a world leader in this space.”
Using the software-as-a-service model, Collect started accepting paying customers in February. Since then it has rapidly
grown to be used in more then 200 stores in 19 countries which collectively have more than 120,000 loyalty programme
members.
Collect is growing at 100 % per month with Australia the fastest growing region, followed by New Zealand and the United
States.
Capital raising
Collect has completed two fully subscribed funding rounds among high net worth individuals. Callaghan Innovation has
also granted research and development funding for the start-up, twice. Total funds raised to date are $1.4 million.
Collect is constantly being enhanced and funding for this, alongside further expansion into the US, are the next
priorities. A third funding round is planned for November and is likely to involve venture capitalists and institutional
investors here and in Australia.
Integration with POS and other cloud operators
Collect has partnered with cloud-based Point-of Sale (POS) solutions, Vend and Australian based Kounta and is
distributed through the add-on stores of these partners, directly to retailers and through cloud integrators such as SMB
Consultants in Australia.
Integration with a merchant’s POS system provides 100% measure of what a customer buys and how they respond to loyalty
offers in real time. It also allows merchants to add customers to their database, redeem rewards and create offers,
without additional hardware.
Collect is also available as a stand-alone solution for retailers without these or any POS system.
The Collect API network continues to grow and includes popular apps such as email marketing solution Mailchimp,
ecommerce specialist Shopify and customer tracker Swarm.
Retailers on board
Retailers are now using Collect all over the world. Here’s what one had to say: "United Sweets is always pushing for the
best tech based systems in the market, when it comes to customer retention and loyalty there's no better system than
Collect," Finn Puklowski, CEO United Sweets.
For more information view: How collect works video: http://collectrewards.com/M edia resources (key statistics, company information, photos, logos etc) http://business.collectrewards.com/media