[This is a sponsored article with ZCITY]
Everybody loves a bargain. And thank the maker we’re living in the golden age of bargains. Online sales happen monthly now on top of the regular festive sales and government mandate sales like the mid and year end sales.
The power is definitely in the hands of consumers and taking advantage of this shift is ZCITY, one of the newest rewards platforms in Malaysia.
The ZCITY team told Vulcan Post that they recently crossed its one million users in 2021, just one and a half years after its deployment to the local market.
Being the new kids on the “rewards platform” block, I was curious to find out what their winning formula was. If one million Malaysians have signed up, should another million sign up too?
Making seamless connections for users
As someone who has used different rewards platforms and apps in the past, I’ve found that they usually offer a disjointed experience. Typically, you swipe a card at a petrol kiosk or pass your rewards card to the cashier after payment.
With ZCITY, the team pride themselves on being able to build a rewards platform with its own in-built payment system, so Zbuddies (what ZCITY calls their users), can pay and be rewarded on the same platform.
Example: If you purchase vouchers through ZCITY using Boost, you can get Boost Coins and Zcoins from a single transaction. Zcoins can then be used for discounts on every transaction.
Curious to see how it works? Download the app here.
Using the app, you don’t need to connect a credit card or top up for your first use, but since you can purchase and earn rewards on the same platform, it’s just easier to link a card to it to make transactions quicker.
Since a platform is nothing without a thriving ecosystem, ZCITY also told us about the initiatives that they’ve done to attract merchants. For one, even merchants on the platform earn Zcoins.
Providing more services to their merchants
In the first few months of the platform’s life, the team dedicated their efforts to onboarding more merchants.
The result? As of December 31, 2021, the brand claims that they’ve managed to recruit over 1,900 merchants to the platform. ZCITY admitted that the pandemic has helped them to rally more merchants onto their site as well, as businesses looked for ways to build an online presence.
Coupled with the rise of e-wallets and other contactless methods of payment, they were strategically positioned to attract new merchants.
To help even more businesses go online, Sam Teo, the CEO of ZCITY, also gave us a sneak peek at its soon-to-be-revealed function called Taste-iT.
It is an F&B smart management system that combines point-of-sale (POS), food delivery, kitchen management, queue, and inventory automation all on a single platform.
With this all-in-one function, merchants can eliminate things like a POS for payments, ledgers for keeping track of inventory, and overall, merchants can save on manpower costs needed to maintain these items.
Time will tell if Taste-iT delivers on their promise of a seamless experience for merchants. I know I’d love to see a world where every purchase I make is managed on one platform. It’s hard to remember how much money I have left in all my various e-wallets.
Rewarding their users to kick-off 2022
Aside from winning various awards like the BrandLaureate’s BestBrands Award, In 2021 alone, they claim to have generated approximately RM237 million in revenue, from e-vouchers, bill payments, Zstore for online transactions and Zmerchant for offline transactions.
That said, the team knows that the success of their platform is all thanks to their users. So, they are running a ZANGPAO campaign this Chinese New Year to give back to their users.
Here’s a quick list of what Zbuddies can get from the campaign:
- Free ZANGPAO daily (win cash vouchers up to RM8.88 daily, instantly deposited into your ZCITY account, to be used on Scan & Pay, bill payment, Zstore, and e-vouchers).
- When collecting ZANGPAO, a 10-digit lucky number will be given to Zbuddies.
- Zbuddies with the 10-digit lucky number can participate in a lucky draw where they stand a chance to win up to RM2,888. Winners will be announced on January 26, 2022 and February 16, 2022. Six winners will be chosen on the date.
- The ZANGPAO campaign starts on January 3, 2022 and ends on February 15, 2022.
While a super app business model is not new, ZCITY’s user adoption is encouraging. With their eyes set on 25 million users by 2025 (i.e., 6.25 million new users every year), ZCITY has their work cutout for them.
- Download the ZCITY app here.
- For more information on ZCITY, click here.
- Read up on other e-commerce platforms we’ve written about here.
Featured Image Credit: ZCITY
