Is your shopping buddy equipped with the smarts?

It’s that time of the year again where we all go into a shopping frenzy online. This is also the busiest period for ShopBack, an e-commerce aggregator that helps online sellers reach customers and incentivises customers with cashback rewards.

Since it started in August 2014, ShopBack has seen more than 3.5 million sign-ups to its service across the six Asia-Pacific markets it operates in. It closed its latest funding round worth USD 25 million in November 2017, raising a total of USD 40 million in venture funding. ShopBack also made its first acquisition this year when it acquired Seedly, a fellow Singaporean start-up that offers a personal finance service.

So, what is behind the success of this innovative start-up? We caught up with ShopBack co-founder Joel Leong on the side-lines of the DBS Asia X FinTech Festival Lab Crawl to chat about innovation, his start-up journey and the use of technology to enhance customer experiences.

1. What does innovation mean to you?

Innovation isn’t necessarily about doing things radically different. It can be about providing a smarter way of doing things. For example, at ShopBack we improve the online shopping experience with useful content to help customers make smarter decisions.

The same goes for ShopBack GO, our latest product that’s currently in the beta phase. Rather than forcing a consumer to change his or her habits, we elevate the experience with various new features.

2. What made you embark on the path of entrepreneurship? What inspired you?

I underwent the National University of Singapore (NUS) Overseas Colleges entrepreneurial immersion programme during my undergraduate days. That was an eye-opening experience which introduced me to the world of start-ups.

I began my career in the government sector upon graduation but I felt that it was not interesting enough for me. So I switched to ZALORA, which was a young start-up back then. Those were the early days of e-commerce and they were hiring aggressively. Candidates without experience were acceptable as long as they were willing to put in the hours to grow the business. I wanted a foot in, so I jumped straight into it. It was a tide that was waiting to rise!

3. What are some of the highs and lows of your start-up journey?

My first high was seeing ShopBack’s first legit customer, meaning it was not our family or friends, making a purchase redirected from ShopBack. I still remember that his name was Edwin and he made a grocery purchase. The latest high was seeing an exponential year-on-year growth of our 11.11 Singles’ Day sales!

Conversely, my first low happened a week before our first campaign. Many of our partners and merchants were still not confirmed. We even considered postponing the campaign. The day after, our biggest partner came on board and everything else fell into place.

4. ShopBack is known to be customer-centric. How do you keep informed of what your customers want?

I sit with the merchant operations team which oversees the customer service (CS) team as well. The CS team engages and interacts with our customers every day. Close communications with the CS team helps us stay informed of what our customers want. We also keep a close watch on the pulse of our customers’ desires through community events and gatherings.

5. Customers are requesting more and more intelligent and tailored experiences. What is your strategy for this?

Operating in the e-commerce space offers access to a variety of data points. Collecting these data points are easy; the toughest part lies in extracting meaningful insights from the analysis of these data points. We utilise tech stack such as Oracle Responsys to make sense of the immense data points and create curated content for each unique customer.

6. We always see accusations of e-commerce leading to the decline of the brick-and-mortar shopping experience. What do you think of such accusations? How will online and offline retail complement each other in Singapore’s setting?

I believe that online and offline retail are fundamentally complementary. Be it online or offline, they are just different touchpoints to fulfil a consumer’s lifestyle needs. There shouldn’t be a need to say which space will emerge victorious because it is not meaningful to arrive at the conclusion. What is meaningful is generating enough touchpoints for consumers to fulfil their needs in a smarter way.

7. How would technology such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics enhance customer experience?

I think these technologies are still in the testing mode. We are keeping track of it but we feel it is currently very nascent.

8. What’s the next big thing for e-commerce?

Customers can’t shop every day but they consume content every day. I would think that the next big thing for e-commerce is to create more customer touchpoints like useful product reviews or gamification — think Shake Shake or Slash It.

Joel Leong is co-founder of ShopBack, a cashback platform in Southeast Asia that aggregates product listings from third-party e-commerce sites. He was one of the panellists for the panel discussion on “Disruptive technologies in the e-commerce space” at the DBS Asia X FinTech Festival Lab Crawl that took place on 15 and 16 November 2018.