KRISTINA AY-AY Co-Founder & Country Head

SHOPBACK Philippines

KRISTINA AY-AY looks every inch a wisp of a girl, slim, long-haired, naturally tanned, bright eyes, articulate, simply pretty. She’s just a girl, but at 28 years old Kristina is already a woman of her own.

Kristina is one of the five founders of ShopBack, the leading digital platform in the Asia Pacific that is empowering all shopaholics on how to shop smartly by getting cash rebates in return for their purchases. Shopaholics need to earn from their shopping sprees.

The company

ShopBack, a tech startup founded in Singapore in 2014, was born out of the idea of how to empower shoppers. ShopBack is now leading the wave of smarter shopping in Asia Pacific, offering a one-stop online portal for consumers to discover the best deals in lifestyle, travel and technology.

As the dominant player in Southeast Asia e-commerce Cashback market, ShopBack has presence in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, India and Taiwan, closing one order every five seconds.

As a platform built and run by passionate shopaholics who are obsessed with empowering consumers, ShopBack bridges the gap between consumers and partner merchants with an attractive offer.

ShopBack enhances shopping, providing up to 30 percent Cashback for consumers to boost their purchasing power while directing concrete transactions to the partner merchants, who gave them commission for every sale made through their site. Part of the commission they get is shared by ShopBack to their shoppers.

It has already over 1,300 regional merchants, including over 400 in the Philippines. Its partners include Uber, Expedia and Lazada. It has regional web traffic of over 3.4 million per month and over 700,000 active members in the Philippines. Regional sales already reached SGD28 million per month with 1,000 orders received per hour or 740,000 orders per month.

The novel idea behind ShopBack has already won them various global awards. The company was finalist of the Global Mobile Challenge in Barcelona, Spain. It also bagged the Emerging Enterprise Award, Emerging Enterprise Award 2016, Singapore.

ShopBack also received the Gold award for Best Start-up (Growth Stage) at SiTF Awards 2015 in Singapore, silver award for Best Innovative Infocomm Products (Consumers) of SiTF Awards 2015, Singapore and finalist for the Retail Startup of the Year at The Rice Bowl Awards 2015, Malaysia.

“Basically, we are a group of people where everyone is shopaholics,” says Kristina, who runs the Philippine operation. Henry Chan of Singapore is the rallying founder as he directs the overall strategy while Joel Leung is doing the commercials.

Each market though operates more on local strategy because what works in Singapore or in any other country may not work in the Philippines.

Now, they’re present in 6 countries and are expanding in new markets. The main focus is Asia Pacific with India as a major market. They are also looking at other markets like Japan and Korea. Central America is also very encouraging. But the forecast in Asia is very strong with the Philippine e-commerce alone expected to hit $17 billion in 2030.

Cash rebates Kristina has explained that their digital platform works on the idea that shoppers normally just spend money to buy what they want. They normally get discounts, especially during sale season and special discounts occasionally.

Shoppers are drawn by special discounts, which at times can go as high as 70 percent. This is the reason that during sale season, shoppers flock in droves to malls, department stores, or to any establishment that offer crazy sales.

But ShopBack, which was founded by five young individuals from ASEAN countries, including our Kristina from the Philippines, is going beyond giving discounts to merchandize and products. ShopBack is not into discounts, but is giving cash rebates on top of the discounts the shopper gets from the merchant.

ShopBack gives rebates from 3 to as much as 30 percent on top of the discounts that you get from its vendors regardless of the amount spent. It’s easy. Just download the ShopBack App for free and click onto the vendor where you intend to shop. You get the discount from the vendor and at the same time get cash rebates from ShopBack.

“ShopBack is another layer of discount so even if you’ve been given discount by the merchant but if you transact via ShopBack you will get cash rebates. Just click on the merchant and it will redirect you to the merchant’s site,” she adds.

“Every time you transact via ShopBack, we give you rewards through cash rebates,” says Kristina.

“I just booked my hotel in Siargao and I got a 6 percent rebates,” says Kristina, who loves to go surfing.

“Our mission is to have this mindset of a smarter way to book a ride or travel by getting rewards in cash, not just discount that you can only use to buy other items,” she said.

Merchants also like the idea of ShopBack because the cash rebates are a good value proposition on the part of shoppers. It is a win-win formula actually for the three of them: ShopBack, merchant and customer.

“Because we are giving cash rebates, more customers are booking on their sites. Shoppers go back to these merchants again and again because of the rebates. This becomes a habit among consumers because they are saving more even as they spend,” says Kristina, whose father hails from Tacloban City and her mother from Samar, but found a good life in Manila.

Message The main message of ShopBack is to save more on purchases because every time you spend there is a portion that goes back to you. The subliminal message is that you are not only spending but also saving at the same time.

“There is always a smarter way to shop,” says Kristina. The cash rebates can be withdrawn in any bank in the Philippines or through a PayPal account.

Their indirect competitors are the loyalty cards being offered by various establishments, but these cards and systems are not free.

“The loyalty cards of the country’s major shopping malls come with a price, but mine is free just sign up with your email address and start using the app,” says Kristina.

With cash rebates, a shopper is totally on top of his savings that she can withdraw in cash or use to buy from other merchants.

This can be addicting because you are also earning at the same time. Sometimes, colleagues compare how much cashback they have. This encourages people to shop some more online.

Notably, majority of their customers are millennials, 19-35 years of age, with disposable income. This age group prefers to shop online and buy almost everything online, including diapers because they get rebates.

“As time goes by, consumers are becoming more informed like and they compare the best price,” she adds.

While ShopBack covers all verticals, Kristina cited that shoppers in the Philippines go for the general merchandize such as home appliances because it is cheaper from Lazada, for travels they go for Expedia, which offers 8 percent rebates. One shopper in the Philippines has piled up rebates of R100,000.

Home furnishings and living products are very meaningful because these are high value products so the rebates become more important.

“Moms appreciate the ShopBack concept because they hold the purse, but the students appreciate on the level of rides and ordering food for those living in condominiums,” says Kristina.

Markets Since there is no limit on where you want to buy as long as the merchant is a partner, ShopBack is also launching its international stores category where shoppers can get rebates from foreign retailers such as Macys or Target. The goal is to get onboard all big players in the US and UK.

“We saw the potential of purchases abroad aside from Amazon,” says Kristina. Shipping or delivery of merchandize is being taken care of by the merchant.

“We’re the leading and dominating the cash back platform in Asia Pacific so we’re expanding markets,” she adds.

In fact, ShopBack is opening new markets every quarter. It has recently launched in Thailand.

With rapidly growing markets, Kristina says they also keep on opening new verticals, not just general merchandize but varied categories, products and services.

What is good with ShopBack is they always listen to customers to get inputs and improve their service.

Consumers also vary from country to country, largely driven by the economic development of the country. This is an opportunity for ShopBack to push e-commerce by enticing people to shop online through their platform.

“There is also more reason to choose convenience over going lining up at stores,” says Kristina, who also clarified that they cannot displace the offline although online has definitely become one of the preferred ways to get things done.

For instance, Filipinos have higher usage for rides like Uber and Grab because of the convenience they offer.

“In addition, we all want to save and we at ShopBack want to become part of the solution,” she adds.

“Whoever is online is our target, but the challenge is not everyone is online,” she adds.

To promote its service, they are using other digital channels. They have allocated budgets for FaceBook to strengthen its community and create more video contents for merchants.

Sustainable

Some tech startups are just there for the short term, waiting for some big guys to buy them out. But that is not the case for ShopBack, whose owners believe their operation is sustainable for the long haul.

“Others exit in just less than 24 months, but us we are already on the third year and I can claim that we are sustainable because we have the right platform and basically people are obsessed with the word shopping,” says Kristina, who met his co-founders while working with online discount firms in Singapore and Thailand.

Like most startups, ShopBack is a lean organization with only 7 people working at the Philippine site. This is similar with Thailand and Taiwan. Indonesia is the biggest because e-commerce space is moving quicker in this country with huge population. Overall, ShopBack has 130 employees for the entire region, but is expected to grow to 500 people.

ShopBack also believes that its mission is to train people especially the new ones to learn new technologies.

“I want to believe that we are on a mission of training people because as a leader I want them to also start their own company through innovation because there are lots of opportunities,” she adds.

She also shared that before they plunged into this project, they did some market studies if the concept can work outside of Singapore, which has advanced digital economy. When the company was able to forge partnerships initially with BPI and Globe in the Philippines, they were convinced that ShopBack is something sustainable.

They started very slow in terms of hiring people. Along the way, they also made expensive mistakes, but Kristina noted that that “If you fail faster, you also recover faster. So, once we mistake, the closer we find solution.”

This is because as a group, ShopBack has developed a culture of continuous learning. “We learn from each other,” says the 28-year-old Kristina noting that they have been obsessed with innovative technology to create big impact on people.

Innovation

Kristina has been obsessed with technology writing codes in college and programs even during high school. Although she eventually took up international relations at Lyceum University with hopes of joining the country’s diplomatic corps, her passion in technology brought her back to IT and building companies from scratch. Her education has also helped her in dealing with cross cultural issues as she collaborates with other people from other countries.

She has worked with online portal and unto e-commerce sites. She used to work with Ensogo, becoming the first sales person of the company and growing the workforce from 1 to 200 in the Philippines. She then got assignments in Singapore and Thailand.

She sees digital transformation as the way forward and making more impact to the society.

Since day one, Kristina says that ShopBack founders already had in mind the 600 million population in southeast Asia. These people must learn how to spend their money wisely.

‘Adulting’

“When I joined ShopBack, it was more than the money that I get every month but more of the mission that what we have is very fulfilling at the end of the day,” she adds. This mission makes her start early at work.

A typical millennial, Kristina lives on the motto “I live hungry and make strong moves.” This is her biggest motivation to succeed in every role she plays today.

At a young age of 28, Kristina is already made. In fact, she noted, that earning millions for millennials has become easy because talents in the digital technology is very competitive.

To convince someone to move to Singapore alone already commands a huge amount. Because of competition, salary rates for IT workers in the Philippines are already becoming at par with salaries in Singapore or other countries.

In the case of ShopBack, what they could promise is their people get competitive salary in the first and second years but if the business proves to be going well within that period, they can take care of them in the next five years.

When they founded ShopBack, the group invested their time and contributed from their own pockets. They eventually got a funding of $600,000 from the Singapore government for their seed money, which they have long recovered.

Most millennials have very strong sense of entitlements, but Kristina doesn’t. At 24 years old, she already started “adulting,” a millennial term for someone embracing more adult responsibilities like moving out from parent’s house and paying for your own bills.

She left the country to work in Thailand and Singapore for digital firms and leading a team of young people where she was the only Filipino.

“That is the adulting part with the help of my mentors,” says Kristina, whose personality keeps her at pace with such sports as wakeboarding and surfing. She is now learning how to sail and kiteboard. At times, she likes chasing typhoons in La Union beaches, although she prefers Siargao. Her father hails from Tacloban and her mother from Samar, but both found good life in Manila.

Some of her money went to the stock market and perhaps a resort property in Samar near the beach because she loves water sports.

With plenty of savings, Kristina has learned how to invest her money wisely because she is also thinking of providing for her children in the future.

“Millennials do marry,” says Kristina, confident, “I will meet someone.”