5 startups that let you get freebies and discounts in the Philippines

Filipinos love shopping. As a matter of fact, five of the malls in the Philippines are considered some of the world’s coolest malls. But apart from shopping, there’s something else people are looking forward to – rewards and discounts.

A number of startups in the Philippines have started to realize this. So today’s landscape has evolved from traditional loyalty cards that consumers keep in their wallets. Technology and smartphones are now helping to make the process less tedious. Here are some startups that can help consumers get rewards in the Philippines:

Zap

A startup-backed by incubator Kickstart Ventures, it launched in March with the aim of giving cashback rewards to its users. Instead of the usual loyalty app, it provides smart stickers which can be tapped on merchants’ terminals whenever people make a purchase. Through the stickers, it even does away the use of smartphone apps. This is a move to tap the huge feature phone userbase in the country.

But it also plans to launch an app soon, while still keeping its smart stickers.

To date, over 180 merchants and 10,000 consumers are already using its platform. Zap also pitched at Startup Arena Jakarta 2013.

Perxclub

In the earlier days, loyalty cards were provided by a store through physical cards, where each visit by a customer is equivalent to a stamp. Then say, on the customer’s fifth or tenth visit, he earns a prize or discount. Launched in September 2012, Perxclub is the modern-day equivalent of that. But today, instead of collecting tons of loyalty cards from different stores, customers can keep it in their phone.

Whenever a customer visits one of its partner merchants, he or she just scans the store’s QRcode, called a PerxCode, and that is already equivalent to a stamp. For the fifth and tenth visit, the customer gets a reward or a discount.

It currently has over 100 partner merchants. The Perxclub app is available as a free download on iOS and Android.

Qoupon

Launched in October, Qoupon is pretty much similar to PerxClub. Users, which it calls Qouponers, can visit its partner merchants and make a purchase. After they do, they need to scan the merchants’ QR code – usually found in the store – and it will be equivalent to a digital stamp. After a number of visits to a specific store, they will be rewarded through freebies or discounts.

MobKard

Stores Specialist Inc.