Author: Dicky Ying, Founder and CEO of Mezzofy
Let me skip the basic and go to the core of the future development of digital coupon.
On merchant-friendly
In future, those coupon platforms requiring merchants to hire a lot of staff and put in a lot of resources in order to issue their own digital coupons can hardly survive? Why I think so? Because as far as I understand, at least one advanced platform already allows merchants to create, issue and redeem their own digital coupons without any technical support or upfront cost. All the merchants need to do is to download an app from App Store or Google Play, and do everything including creation, distribution and redemption of their own digital coupons with just a mobile phone.
On consumer-friendly
As a consumer, you may find it inconvenient to download any digital coupons because you are often required to download a new app for each and every coupon you wish to receive. As a consumer, I also find it annoying. In fact, it’s a barrier for the development of digital coupon business as a whole. In the future, only those platforms which can overcome this barrier may become popular. At present, most platforms still maintain the barriers. Fortunately, to the extent of my knowledge, at least one coupon platform have already cut the red tape and allowed consumers to receive digital coupons from its platform without downloading any apps. When consumers wish to download any digital coupons from the platform issued by any merchants, all they need to do is to make a click and the coupon will be issued to their registered email boxes or their mobile phones direct by SMS. When one needs to use the digital coupon, he/she just needs to retrieve it from his/her email boxes/SMS boxes and send/ show it to the merchant concerned for redemption direct.
On global standard
In future, digital coupons may have global standard just like barcode. All merchants of the world use the same barcode standard so that their products made in any places can be sold in any shops around the world without any hiccups. If and when there is a global standard of digital coupons, both merchants and consumers will have more confidence in such global recognised coupons, and the exchange of such coupons around the world will become feasible. Technically speaking, it’s possible. And the rest will be decided by the market.