Loyalty App, Simple Cashback

Introduction

Context

Our business focuses on distributing FMCG products to mom-and-pop shop in rural area of Vietnam (and later, Malaysia). Every day, our salesmen visits these shop to convince the owner to stock our products. At the time of this project, we had wide coverage across Vietnam, with a strong presence in the Mekong Delta.

Coverage of the business and shop appearance

The project was initiated to look for opportunities to provide meaningful experiences through technology to our customers, while also finding ways to grow the business sustainably.

My roles

• Collaborated with the research team on the foundational study.

• Led and executed concept testing and provided reports and recommendations for the business team.

• Designed end-to-end user flows and interactions for the app.

Fundamental research: in-depth interviews

We kicked off the project with fundamental research.

During the COVID period, the research team conducted online interviews with 8 store owners in 2 provinces. Through the research, we gained valuable insights into their motivations, challenges, and how they run their day-to-day work.

A detail from customer journey mapping

Insights

Shop owners typically ran their businesses at home and did their tasks manually — Their homes were usually located near markets or schools to attract more customer traffic. The majority of them were middle-aged women, though not all. They tended to manage tasks manually such as noting down what to buy, making phone calls, meeting salespeople in person, or memorizing product prices.

Shop owners were price-sensitive — The products from different distributors were often the same. Any salesman who offered even a tiny discount could make them change their purchase decision.

We were just one among many suppliers — The competition was fierce. We did not have a strong competitive edge except that we were bigger than local distributors. However, we were still not as big as companies like Unilever or Heineken.

Our salesmen relied mainly on building good relationships with customers in order to retain them.

key insights

As a product team, in this research we wanted to find tech initiatives to improve our customers' lives. But from the data we got from this research, there was very little we could do as a tech improvement to support them. Rather, the business model itself had to change in order to offer them better prices.

But then, we knew more about business to our business challenges.

Business challenges

Our salespeople were the only connection between the company and the shop owners. We depended on a large salesforce to reach over 20,000 stores in Vietnam and 6,500 stores in Malaysia.

The company felt vulnerable relying on this single channel and feared losing control over revenue. There are many reasons such as: when a salesperson left, sales dropped; or when the salesperson hit their targets early, they often stopped selling for the rest of the month.

Based on this information, we summarized our challenges into two key business goals:

• Improve salesperson productivity and discipline

• Build alternatives connection with our customers

Agreed on the problem

After listening and discussing with the business team, our product team agreed on the problem to solve:

How might we create direct channels to connect with store owners, so our business is less dependent on in-person sales?

Ideation

Workshop - HMW create direct channels to connect with customers ?

Using inputs from previous fundamental research, the product team facilitated a workshop to explore ideas. Colleagues from the business, sales, and marketing teams were invited to participate to ensure diverse perspectives.

Steps in design sprint we did

Final ideas: Loyalty mobile app

Among the ideas we generated, the mobile loyalty app stood out as feasible and well-aligned with our tech capacity.

Concept 1: Physical reward system

Concept explanation: Provide a wide range of interesting and valuable rewards. As they progress to higher tiers, the rewards become increasingly attractive and valuable.

Hypothesis: This system could motivates customers to repeat purchases and use points to redeem rewards. While browsing and searching for their favorite items to redeem, customers gradually become more familiar with the app, which helps build a more engaged and active user base.

Flow: user browses to see what rewards they want to redeem

Flow: user redeem a reward

Concept 2: Tiered system with points

Concept explanation: Customers would earn coins to progress to higher tiers, unlocking more attractive benefits such as faster delivery, dedicated customer support and more interesting rewards.

Hypothesis : This system could encourage customer retention and motivate them repeat purchases, because: higher-tier benefits brings direct value to their business. For example, getting access to better promotions first helps them increase profit; faster delivery makes restocking more convenient.

Flow: user views current points and checks the tier benefit

Flow: User views the next tier’s attractive rewards → feels motivated to reach to progress to next tier

Testing

While we aim to learn about customers’ reactions to our idea, we also want to understand their experience with loyalty programs in general and their openness to a mobile app.

Objectives

1. Learn about shop owners experience with loyalty program

2. Gather feedback on how shop owners react to our idea

3. How open they are to using a mobile app

4. Learn about factors that drive shop owners' loyalty

Approach

1. Method: In-person interviews (qualitative)

2. Techniques:

   • Semi-structured interview questions (about loyalty program experiences)

   • Concept testing (showing loyalty program concepts prototypes on phone)

Participants

• 11 participants from Cần Thơ province

• Two age groups: Group 1 is 29–45 and Group 2 is 46–60

• Environment: the shops of our participants (shop owners)

Key findings & recommendations

Insight: experience with loyalty program

Most shop owners had experience with loyalty program offered by many distributer/supplier companies.

• Overall, shop owners showed a positive attitude toward this.

• Heineken, Vinshop offer mobile app experience to the customers

• Simply Oil, Unilever provides bonus tracking on order receipts.

• Shop owners tent to accumulate bonus over a long time before using them. This meant they are unlikely to check the app frequently.

Recommendations

• ✅ Do: Loyalty programs seem welcomed by customers

• ✅ Do: Allow customer to redeem after a long period of time

• ✅ Do: Cash-base rewards is attractive

Insight: reactions to our idea

Points & tiers: Most shop owners showed little interests: Younger shop owners (group 1) were somewhat more open to the idea, while older shop owners (group 2) often found these concepts too complicated.

Physical reward: Both groups found physical rewards to have little value to them. Many mentioned that the items were often repetitive or things they already owned. Since they couldn’t resell them, those items were either given away or ended up collecting dust in their house.

Regarding reward reference: Tangible cash-based rewards were considered as more attractive than abstract ones. These types of rewards felt more direct and beneficial. For many, it felt the same as getting a good price.

Recommendations

• ❌ Don't: Physical rewards might be not useful

• ❌ Don't: Points & Tiers system is abstract & complicated

• ✅ Do: Try a cash-base reward to meet shop owners' reference

Insight: openness level to mobile app

Group 1 (29–45)

• Have no difficulty using apps and open to app-based solutions.

• Prefer helpful tools like product listings, updated promotions, order placement.

Group 2 (46-60)

• Find mobile apps complicated in general

• Many expressed a fear of making mistakes.

• Use phone for only basic functions like calling, texting, and taking photos.

• Prefer more traditional methods, such as calling via Zalo app, in-person visits.

Recommendations

• ❌ Don't: abstract concept and complicated flow

• ✅ Do: Keep the app simple and clutter free

Insight: Factors that drive loyalty

Most of shop owners did not feel the need to stay loyal to a particular distributor or supplier unless the brand is exclusive, such as Unilever, Heineken, Simply Oil...

What actually drove their choice are price, product quality, and service which price being the number 1 factor.

Recommendations

• ✅ Do: Ensure competitive and reasonable pricing in the market

• ❌ Don't: Rely on a loyalty program while and increase price

Price is the most important consideration

Some notes on the business strategy

De-prioritize physical rewards and tier-based concepts and agree to go on with a cash-based loyalty concept that better aligns with what customers actually prefer.

Seek more ways to secure better pricing: There was a strategy that said we should avoid competing on price because lowering prices was not sustainable. However, the research helped encourage the business to re-evaluate its approach and seek more ways to secure better pricing, such as building partnerships with manufacturers and large suppliers to get better deals.

First iteration

Concept: Cashback reward

Concept explanation: When a shop owner makes purchases through salesmen, the system will reward them with cashback based on what they buy. They can track their earned cashback in the mobile app and use them to redeem discount, which will be applied to their next order automatically.

Key design: Redeem a voucher discount

Explanation: Users can view their cashback balance and redeem discount voucher. The voucher notice which stays in the app until used.

Hypothesis:

Placing Cashback at the main entry point of the app (top of the home screen) ensures immediate discoverability and quick access.

Presenting Cashback with large typography and a prominent button clearly signals actionable items.

Showing the current cashback balance also motivates users to open the app and track their progress.

Redeem a voucher discount flow

Key design: Cashback history details & Order details

Explanation: Users can see a breakdown of earned and redeemed cashback, along with a history to review past transactions.

Hypothesis:

Users want to clearly see how much they’ve earned & spent: showing the cashback history motivates user to track benefits and builds trust through transparency.

Users want to maximize the value of their purchases: showing cashback earned per order gives them clear, instant feedback. It helps them feel rewarded and motivates them to keep using the app.

Cashback section

Order details section

You can get an overview in this Figma prototype I prepared for the case study.

Launch

Pilot launch

Instead of continuing to test in controlled environments, we moved forward with a live pilot in Khánh Hòa province. Time was a valuable for the business team, so we decided to prioritize speed to market over extended validation. We chose to learn by doing, launching the program and using real-world data to inform the next steps.

Measure

From July to November, over 500 customers participated, with an average of 274 monthly users. With strong support from the sales team and compelling incentives, customers perceived the offers as good value, which led to strong engagement and repeated use. These results strongly validated our earlier findings and recommendations:

Cash rewards are a highly preferred incentive mechanism, and direct support from the sales team was essential to drive adoption and manage the transition effectively.

Average monthly active user was 274 over total 500 users in the pilot launch

Partnered with the sales team to drive adoption

Throughout the rollout, we worked closely with the sales team to:

• Gather ongoing feedback from the field.

• Support how to support customers correctly.

• Encourage the sales team to let users try the app themselves, helping them build familiarity and confidence.

Next Steps: roadmap to expand value for users

Encouraged by the pilot results, the business and product teams are planning the next phase of development. The upcoming roadmap focuses on expanding value for users by adding features such as vouchers, product listings, lucky draw game, and best-price items…

My Reflection

Design in sensitive context

Some topic, like pricing, go beyond product design. While we may not own pricing decisions, we help show how such factors impact user behaviors.

It is crucial for us to provide honest feedback to the business. When we stay grounded in user needs, we help ensure that decisions are informed by reality, not assumptions.

Digital doesn’t always mean better

This project was a also valuable reminder for me not to assume that digital solutions are always better, especially for senior people in rural areas who often have limited experience with technology.

But in reality, digital tools are often seen as a practical and scalable approach for businesses. In these cases, the challenge becomes finding the right compromises, This will help us to answer the question: How can we simplify the experience, provide the right support, and design with empathy so that digital becomes accessible and useful, even for those who didn’t ask for it?

Thanks for making it this far!