Pomona's “Point Rewards” App and O2O Approach to “Offline Retailers”

The world of e-commerce is growing hotly in Indonesia and helping businesses a lot offline increase product sales. But on the other hand, e-commerce also has a significant impact on the decline in the flow of customer visits in stores offline. This problem is now trying to be solved by Pomona, the app mobile devices with concept reward points.

Pomona is an app mobile devices which gives users the opportunity to capture real prizes such as credits, vouchers, and even gadgets for free by collecting points from shops offline visited. Simply put Pomona is an app online trying to bring traffic to offline (O2O concept) or can be positioned like Pokemon Go for shoppers.

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Pomona CEO and Co-Founder Benz Budiman said, “You can call us 'Pokemon Go for Shopper'. If with game With this, users can catch virtual monsters, with Pomona you can capture points that can be exchanged for various real prizes such as credit, vouchers, and even gadgets for free.”

“Pomona's main mission is to create a shopping experience offline become more rewarding, , and personal. We provide real incentives that can be obtained by doing activities that have become part of your life,” he continued.

The background of the start of Pomona

Pomona was started by Benz and his partner Ariawan Suwendi (CTO) in December 2015 and was officially launched in May 2016. Benz has previously created the Swipe application, while Ariawan has 10 years of experience working in Silicon Valley. Sid Nandy, who has career experience at Rocket Internet, also mentioned that Benz will soon join as CMO.

Benz explained his background in starting Pomona was when several months ago it realized that it was easier to get people to buy when they were in a store than when they saw an ad elsewhere. The conversion rate is also called Benz is quite high, reaching 20-95 percent when someone is in a physical store compared to when they see an ad online which only reached 0,5-3 percent.

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Benz said, “This discovery underscores the importance of 'foot traffic' to increased sales. […] We validated this hypothesis by talking to the shop owner. When talking to more of them, we found that many shops realized that attracting people into the shop was not easy.

“If 'foot traffic' is important, why don't stores reward shoppers for visiting their stores? […] This is where Pomona comes in. To the shop owner, Pomona was platform to attract buyers, bring in traffic, give rewards, and [supposedly] increased sales figures. For users, Pomona is an app that enhances the shopping experience and earns free gifts,” he continued.

Plans and targets to be achieved

Pomona claims that it is currently working with more than 200 shops offline which is in Jakarta. Even though its operations are still limited in Jakarta, Benz also mentioned that other cities are already in the market pipeline they.

Through 200 shops offline This Pomona partner allows users to collect points which can later be exchanged for prizes. The method is simple, self check-in when visiting partner stores, QR code check-in at partner stores without the need to transact, and when making purchases. For the verification process of users who actually bought the promo, the staff from the store will enter a passcode or promo to verify the transaction that took place.

Benz says, “Since launching in May 2016, we've had 20 total downloads. We expect to get over 50K downloads by the end of this year with a weekly active user rate of 40 percent. We are confident that we can exceed this target with several partners who will join, such as Mall Artha Gading at the end of September.”

"Holding to the [wants of] Pomona users, they want an easier way to earn points and earn rewards. In this context, we plan to increase partners merchant at least [up to] 500 traders,” Benz further said.

Remaining homework

Pomona isn't the only player in the app realm looking to bring increased traffic and sales to stores offline. Previously there was Loyalbox, stamps, and also Korting who tried to taste the cake. However, no one could really show their fangs here.

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Consumers are now already comfortable with the methods offered by e-commerce players in Indonesia. Especially in big cities like Jakarta, which practically allows shoppers to avoid traffic jams and jostle just to get a product.

Even though Pomona took the momentum and positioning which is good along with the Pokemon Go phenomenon, but they still have a lot of homework to do. In addition to adding partners merchant, Pomona and the actors in this pool should be able to give a campaign, rewards, or maybe open a new channel that can actually make consumers want to come to the store.