SocialHappen Brings Discounts and Rewards to Thai Shoppers

The shopping discounts app ShopKick has proved to be popular, and now Bangkok-based SocialHappen wants to bring the same model to Thai consumers.

The SocialHappen app lets users find nearby discounts and promotions at participating retailers. It also has a gamified form of location-based check-ins whereby shoppers earn points and virtual badges for walking into a store. It might even earn you a gift – that’s because the startup puts gashapon toy machines into stores. Of course, it’s questionable if these toys are good enough for some consumers.

SocialHappen’s app is currently in development. Pitching to the panel of judges at our Startup Asia even in Singapore this afternoon, founder Charkrid Thanhachartyothin explained that it’s aiming to solve a real problem for smaller retailers.

As with all retail-reliant apps like this, it’s only as good as the brick-and-mortar partners that it has. If there’s not enough in the way of shopping options and useful discounts, then users will look elsewhere. But this Thai startup has plenty of retail experience, having also made ShopWeLike as a platform for Facebook stores.

The judges are concerned about accessibility – shoppers must download the app, and the startup needs to persuade retailers. Charkrid says that its gashapon machines use internal, in-store wifi so there’s no need to use GPS or QR codes or other complex things. Judge Jeffrey Paine says he feels that SocialHappen needs a hook and doesn’t really have an enticing pull right now. Later this afternoon we’ll see which of our 20 startups wins over the judges.

This is a part of our coverage of Startup Asia Singapore 2013, our event running on April 4 and 5. For the rest of our Startup Arena pitches, see here. You can follow along on Twitter at @techinasia, and on our Facebook page.