The circle of selling and buying products has been going on for decades, but this process is made much easier through online shopping. From purchasing clothes to doing groceries, everything is just a click away. Customers no longer have to travel to physical stores or wait long checkout lines; instead, they can easily browse what they want and compare prices online. However, keeping track of your purchases and loyalty programs is difficult with multiple online retailers available. It is where Fetch Rewards jumps in.
It is a successful mobile app that helps users spend and save money by earning points for their online and in-store purchases. Customers can happily redeem the points at any time and get merchandise, gift cards, or even cash. If you want to know everything about Fetch Rewards, how it works, and how to make money, this platform is of great help! So, without wasting another minute, let’s delve into the article below.
What is Fetch Rewards?
Fetch Rewards is a retail website allowing customers to win loyalty points on every online purchase that can be in the form of cashback. It has collaborated with hundreds of brands, including top niches like baby, baking, beauty, cleaning and home improvements, grocery, health and wellness, personal care, etc. A user must scan his receipt, either typed or handwritten, after making a purchase. The points will be added to your account that can later be redeemed. Just make sure that the scanned receipt is clearly readable, or else the system will not detect it.
Fetch Rewards is free to use and available on iOS and Android devices. This user-friendly app is also easy to navigate, so anyone wishing to save money through shopping finds it accessible.
How Does Fetch Work?
The working of this app is made pretty simple for everyone to use it and get benefits. Start with downloading the app on your mobile phone. You can find the app on both Google Play and Apple Store. Just create an account with the required credentials; once done, you can start earning rewards. Choose the desired brand you want to shop items from. There’s an option to discover the brands in the app if you are unsure of their availability.
After you’ve made your purchase, you’ll need to scan your receipt using the app. Make sure the receipt is clear and readable before you scan it. The app will automatically detect the brands and products you bought and award you points accordingly. Depending on the brand and product, you can earn anywhere from 5 to 10,000 points per item. A minimum of 3,000 points is necessary to claim your reward from the app. It has many prizes, including bonus cards from popular retailers like Amazon and Walmart. You can also contest to win rewards like groceries or vacations.
How Do Fetch Rewards Make Money?
They have made it very simple to make money that benefits both – the app and the partner retailers. Fetch Rewards makes most of its money by charging affiliate commissions to its associated brands, called the “referral fee.” The company also started making money through interchange fees in late 2020.
Let’s look into the business models through which Fetch Rewards makes money and understand them in detail.
Affiliate Commissions
Fetch Rewards successfully partners with over 350+ America’s most popular brands, including major names like Pepsi, Baby Dove, Mountain Dew, Fresh Step, etc. Whenever a customer comes to scan his receipt and earns rewards from the attached brands, Fetch Rewards earns a good commission. This process is called affiliate commission. It is a common way of generating revenue where platforms like Fetch Rewards act as middlemen between the customers and the brands.
Both get benefits, thus promoting the brand’s sales by offering its users a specific prize on each purchase. In most instances, or typically speaking, users get 1000 points on every $1 purchase. The more users buy a brand’s products, the more affiliate commissions Fetch Rewards earns. It’s a win-win situation: users earn rewards for their purchases, while Fetch Rewards earns money for promoting the brands.
Interchange Fees
Fetch launched its very own MasterCard in late 2020. Customers can use this MasterCard debit card wherever purchasing with MasterCard is allowed, and the process is called “Fetch Pay.” This program enables users to earn rewards for purchases outside the app simply by using their Fetch Rewards debit card. But how exactly does the app generate its revenue from this program? The answer lies in interchange fees.
The merchant pays a significant interchange fee to the partnered bank whenever a user makes a purchase with its Fetch Rewards debit card. The platform, in return, gets a portion of this fee for every transaction, which is still publically not disclosed. The leading app has collaborated with “One,” which handles compliance and customer service.
Through Referral Code
As one of the biggest cashback platforms, Fetch Rewards also grows by distributing referral codes. It allows first-time users to win rewards right after they sign in to the app and scan their first receipt. It is another way of affiliating with the customers. When someone signs up for the first time using a referral code, both parties get bonus points. It greatly helps Fetch Rewards to grow its user base and reach more potential customers.
How Much Money Does Fetch Rewards Make?
Fetch Rewards has not publicly disclosed its revenue yet. Still, some clues give us a rough idea that the online platform is significantly making millions of dollars. According to different resources, the company reached over 5 million users. If we roughly assume and calculate that one person is averagely scanning three receipts a week, the annual revenue from affiliate commissions alone reaches to million dollars. Isn’t it huge?
But, of course, it is just an estimate, and we cannot give a pet statement on how much money Fetch Rewards make. However, it’s worth noting that the company recently raised a venture capital funding of $240 million in equity and debt at a valuation of more than $2.5 billion.
Brief History of Fetch Rewards
Schroll and Tyler Kennedy were students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who devised a unique idea of designing an online cashback app in 2013. The thought appeared from Schroll’s frustration with the typical loyalty programs where customers have to jump to the stores to earn rewards. He thought of why not make something simple that also stays convenient for the locals.
This determination had him and his fellow worker arrange meetings with different organizations to secure funding. After presenting his business plan, many companies provided funds, making him decide to quit university to focus on his aim. At that time, Schroll was pursuing a degree in Entrepreneurial Studies. Finally, the efforts resulted in the Fetch Rewards mobile app in the summer of 2013.
Initially, Fetch Rewards was only available on iOS and in a few select markets. However, the app quickly gained popularity and expanded to new markets across the United States. After a couple of years, the app raised funding in a million dollars, promoting the company to further develop. Now, you can see that Fetch Rewards has partnered with hundreds of renowned brands, allowing users to choose the rewards that best suit their needs.
What Do Fetch Rewards Do with Your Receipts?
As we have already discussed, the business model of Fetch Rewards is meant to pay you. Yes, you heard it right. On every receipt scan with the online application, you will get points that can later be redeemed. You can collect the points to buy something big from the store, get gift cards, or even make purchases from your favorite online platforms like Target, Amazon, Instacart, Walmart, etc.
How to Get 10000 Points on Fetch Rewards?
You can earn from as low as 1,000 to even 10,000 points on Fetch Rewards, and the process is pretty straightforward. Simply upload the receipt with the participating item to get extra points. For every $1 purchase, a user receives 1,000 points. This way, you can make a collective purchase of $10 or buy different items worth $10 to get 10,000 points on the app.
Why Does Fetch Want Receipts?
The entire rewarding process depends on your scanned receipt, so uploading it is critical to getting points on Fetch Rewards. Right after you make a purchase from the partnered brands at Fetch Rewards, upload its receipt and earn points.
Fetch Rewards Competitors
Like any other successful business, Fetch Rewards has numerous competitors entertaining customers online. The top of them are:
Rakuten Rewards
It is a similar and popular cashback app like Fetch Rewards. Customers can earn a significant percentage of cashback through Rakuten Rewards on every purchase. The company is one of the largest free loyalty programs in the U.S.
Swagbucks
Swagbucks make sure to offer you free gift cards and a set cashback percentage for every purchase you make online. With over 20 million registered users, Swagbucks is one of the most popular rewards programs in the market.
Honey
This popular setup has partnered with more than 30,000 retailers and earns the same way Fetch Rewards do. This browser extension automatically finds and applies coupon codes at checkout. Honey also offers a rewards program helping users achieve Honey Gold for their purchases, which can be redeemed for gift cards at popular retailers.
Shopkick
This app came to the market in 2009 and now has almost 30 million users online. It is a rewarding retail app that lets the users enjoy prizes for walking into participating stores, scanning barcodes, making purchases, and watching videos. The collected points are called kicks that can later be redeemed for gift cards at the affiliated shops.
Is Fetch Rewards Worth it? – Final Takeaway
Now is the time to ask yourself if Fetch Rewards is worth downloading or not. In my opinion, this huge rewarding platform is worth downloading as you easily get points on everyday purchases. What do you want more?
You can redeem a collected amount of points when they reach a big number or get gift cards side by side. It’s completely up to the user if he’s a good online shopper. Just don’t miss snapping your receipt so that everything written is clear. Happy shopping!
Matthew is a Co-Founder at BusinessFinanceArticles.org. Matthew was a floor manager at a local restaurant in Wales. He lost his job after the pandemic and took initiative to make a team and start the project.
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