Hot startup of the month: South Africa's Zingo App
Connecting Africa's hot startup of the month is South Africa's Zingo App, a loyalty program that offers comprehensive promotions with various retailers and brands across multiple industries.
The rise of loyalty programs in Africa's e-commerce ecosystem has been remarkable in recent years.
In South Africa alone, participation in loyalty schemes has reached 76% of the adult population, indicating a significant increase in consumer engagement and preference for rewards-driven shopping experiences.
According to GlobeNewsWire, South Africa's loyalty market is forecast to continue to grow between 2024 and 2028 to record a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.4%.
The country's loyalty market is forecast to increase from US$345.5 million in 2023 to reach US$550 million by 2028.
This surge is driven by evolving consumer behavior, technological advances and the increasing demand for personalized offerings, positioning loyalty programs as a critical strategy for businesses aiming to enhance customer retention and drive sales across the continent.
"Loyalty card apps have been around for a while, but as it stands, we are the only app that fully integrates digitizing loyalty cards along with promotions," TP Pillay, CEO of Zingo App, told Connecting Africa in an interview.
He said that approximately 75% of South African shoppers are a part of some kind of loyalty or rewards program, and over 20 million people have smartphones.
"Based on that and further research, we identified a huge need in providing shoppers convenience and the ability to shop smarter though our promotions feature," he explained.
Zingo App's origin story
Founded in 2021, Zingo App was initially set up to solve a problem that very quickly was resolved by incumbents in the fintech space, so the Zingo App founders had to change course.
"With any technology-based endeavor, you learn along the way, and we have had a few iterations of this product, and have done our best to ensure we were able to assess and change direction if product/market fit couldn't be clearly achieved," Pillay explained.
"Having the ability and agility to develop and test ideas has been a huge benefit for us; this has enabled us to bring a version of this platform to market that has been thought through, and actually has a need it is meeting for consumers," he continued.
Furthermore, Pillay believes the Zingo App is the only app that offers comprehensive promotions with various retailers and brands across multiple industries.
He said that the Zingo App's simplified design and user interface has been at the forefront of its development, ensuring that the effort for the customer is minimized when engaging with this business.
"We are live and have had direct feedback from users through social media and email, and are developing additional contact points to ensure our users can reach us and interact with someone who can help solve and issues, and note any potential enhancements needed based on this feedback," Pillay noted.
Regulation and expansion
Pillay said the company has been very mindful of the legislative requirements involved in user data. It uses backend systems and software that ensure user data is stored safely and can be removed upon request by the user.
"We also detail the need for certain user info in our privacy policy which is available across all the versions of our web platform and mobile app," Pillay added.
"This is a crucial area of focus for us, and we continue to monitor regulation to ensure we are ahead of the market and are protecting our user info," the CEO continued.
Zingo App's loyalty program offers comprehensive promotions with various retailers and brands across multiple industries. (Source: Zingo App)
The startup uses Supabase for its backend which comes with security measures including data being encrypted at rest with Advanced Encryption Standard 256 (AES-256) and in transit via transport layer security (TLS) encryption. Sensitive information like access tokens and keys are encrypted at the application level before they are stored in the database.
"Apart from that we have implemented Role-Based Access Controls (RBAC) to ensure users can only access what they need – their own user data, their own loyalty cards and specials available to everyone," he reiterated.
Pillay believes the e-commerce industry will continue to bring new and exciting solutions to the consumer, giving Zingo App several opportunities that challenge the way it conducts business.
"Zingo App is a platform business that is well poised to continue growing within this industry. We are currently a consumer app offering extreme convenience, but the next iteration of this business will look to connect companies to people and be used as a conduit to bring even more organizations to the customer at their point of connection over the app/phone and reducing the effort required to access consumer goods only in-store," he concluded.