ShopBack is going into brick-and-mortar cashback, starting with 200 brands

Update on 17 December:  ShopBack Go has officially launched. Partnering with Visa and Mastercard, users can earn cashback at over 400 F&B brands. “Dining spend makes up almost 20 percent of total card spend for Singaporeans,” says Kunal Chatterjee, Visa’s country manager for Singapore and Brunei.

ShopBack, a leading Asian cashback app headquartered in Singapore, is close to launching a brick-and-mortar cashback feature, a source familiar with the company’s plans told Tech in Asia. Called ShopBack Go, the new feature has signed up around 200 food and beverage businesses – including chains like Yole and Tiong Bahru Bakery as well as Paradise Group, which owns 12 brands – ahead of its official launch in Singapore in early November.

The move is ShopBack’s attempt to increase its brand recognition and reach by targeting products and services with high-frequency consumption, the source said. Food outlets fit the bill perfectly. The feature could also increase ShopBack’s revenue by bringing its performance marketing business model to retailers.

Currently, ShopBack makes money via referral fees earned from driving its users to various ecommerce brands. With ShopBack Go, the startup can now track the flow of its traffic to brick-and-mortar shops. The company has 7 million monthly users across desktop and mobile, as well as 1,500 merchants on its platform, up from 5 million users and 1,300 merchants five months ago.

With the latest app update this morning, ShopBack Go is available for use. As part of the soft release, the company is holding a preview in a local mall to spread the word about the feature.

Indeed, one of the challenges that the company will face is driving consumers to use ShopBack Go. But the feature was designed with ease of use in mind. For consumers, the first step involves linking a Visa or Mastercard credit or debit card to their ShopBack account.

If they’re interested in getting cashback from a store, they’ll need to enable that option for that specific brand from within the app. After doing that, the process should be seamless. Whenever consumers make a purchase with the same card in-store, they can automatically redeem the cash.

ShopBack Go is an example of online-to-offline commerce, in which online channels are used to drive purchases at offline locations.