Creating Your Own Custom Rewards App like Fetch

Fetch Rewards is currently the number one consumer rewards app in the USA. As per Data.ai, it is the number one rewards app in the USA. Having taken the rewards app space by storm with its attractive features and ease of use. What Fetch does is to allow you to scan your receipt of purchase and upload points for that particular seller. You can upload your receipt for 14 days from the date of delivery allowing you plenty of time to upload your receipt and collect rewards. Fetch also offers multiple convenient features such as shopping lists and recipes to make your shopping experience, whether online or offline more fruitful. 

There are multiple rewards apps on the market but Fetch has grown its market share by leaps and bounds to take the number one position in the rewards app development space. 

We believe there are still many opportunities in the rewards app development space and in this article we shall discuss this further and explore how such a custom app shall look like.

What is Rewards App Development?

One of the major challenges for any retailer or B2C business is to retain customers. With loyalty programs, retailers can increase their customer loyalty and increase return customers. With customer loyalty apps, users can store their rewards and loyalty points within the app, take advantage of exclusive offers and utilise the reward points from the app while shopping. Retailers can connect with the customers through the app and offer exclusive offers and keep their customers updated with all the happenings inside the store such as sales and discounts and even offer personalized recommendations if the user allows. 

Now let’s move onto the key features of an app like Fetch rewards and discuss them in some detail. 

Key Features of Custom Rewards Apps like Fetch

Receipt Scan & Upload

The most key feature for an app like Fetch will be the scan and upload of all purchase receipts. You also need to add fraud detection and make sure that customers can only add receipts within a short time period such as one or two weeks. Receipts once scanned can be uploaded to the backend of the app with the requisite rewards points added to the retailer’s section to the app. 

Fraud Detection

Fraud detection needs to be a separate feature that needs to be fast and robust. As fraudsters can claim points by uploading made up invoices and receipts you need to make sure that you have a robust fraud detection system that can detect fraudulent invoices and receipts without harassing genuine customers with drawn-out processes and verifications. 

Discounts & Offers In the discounts and offer section your associated retailers can offer special discounts and offers to your users. If users opt in for personalized recommendations, retailers can offer that as well. Customers can be encouraged to shop online or offline with the special codes, discounts, and offers and generate gift cards as per the point added. 

Points Calculator

Points calculator can calculate the points generated for each retailer based on the invoice or receipt scanner and assign it to the respective retailer’s section inside the user’s account. With a unique formula for each retailer, requisite points should get assigned to the user which then theory can use for claiming gift cards and other benefits. 

Donation

In this section, users can opt to donate some of their points to others and receive donations of points if they need it. 

Rewards Section

In this section, all the rewards collected by the user such as frequent shopper points and loyalty rewards can be accessed and utilised by the end user as and when needed. 

Push Notifications

With push notifications, the app can keep the end-user updated about all the changes happening, specific offers and discounts from the retailers and any purchases and status update about their receipts. 

Shopping List

In this section, users can add all the times they need next time they go shopping so as to not miss out on anything and buy them as and when they go shopping.

Major Challenges

As we can see one of the major technical challenges for this app will be the scanner and fraud detection. A high level of fraud will repel retailers instead of attracting them. As such you need to integrate ML & AI along with a robust algorithm and even some human element beforehand for the machines to learn the right patterns and detect the right and wrong invoices accordingly. 

One other challenge will be to market this app. You have a space that is not without competition. As such you need to position yourself better and come up with attractive propositions for the end-user. Localizing the offers based on the location can be a useful strategy. 

Tying up with popular retailers can make or break your app. Instead of reorienting your users towards new retailers, you are better off tying up with the current retailers and using their existing offers and discounts to integrate within the app and offer some more on top off it.

Monetization

A simple way to monetize this app would be to build up a user base and then offer it to retailers for affiliate commissions. Another would be to allow retailers to run ads and collect revenue. You can also offer premium features and get subscription revenue from users. A deep study of your user base can help you derive the right marketing strategy. For the initial phase, your focus should be on the MVP and getting the maximum users.

Summary

Creating a custom rewards app like Fetch requires a multi-faceted approach that involves mobile app development, web development, and AI & ML tools. As such you need the hand of a team of experts who can guide you along the entire journey. Do drop us a line to consult our experts with the backing of an NDA.