Don't Be That Crazy Coupon Clipper

If you don't use coupons, dislike daily deals, and rarely use loyalty cards then you're one of tens of millions of Americans who feel the same way. Even though the combined industry of all three is over $100 billion, all three industries have been in decline for years. But despite the year-over-year decline in usage, these sectors still attracted over $1.5 billion in private investments since early 2014.

Some of the main reasons constantly cited by consumers as to why they don't use coupons, daily deals or loyalty cards is because coupons are difficult to organize and constantly expire, daily deals are usually product irrelevant to them, and loyalty cards require too much time and hassle just to earn a small reward.

wRipple, www.mywripple.com is a completely new way for people to save.

wRipple allows consumers to receive a discount on-demand, anytime they want and on most of the products that they are purchasing without needing any coupons, daily deals, or loyalty cards.

The reason that merchants are willing to give our users a substantial discount is because our users will allow them, via the wRipple software to auto-post a one-time first person message to their social media accounts that the user linked to wRipple. This message also includes an offer from that merchant that the user's friends and connections to use. If one of their friends "likes" or "shares" the post, then even more people can take advantage of the offer.

We focus 100% on white labeling our software for merchants that have six or more locations. This allows us to have significantly lower user acquisition costs, lower over all marketing and sales costs.

wRipple achieves what no other coupon, loyalty, or daily deal app can offer for a merchant and that is branding to a demographic that is statistically similar to their existing customer base and also more likely to act on a recommendation from their connections.

Like other recently and highly successful companies (Uber and Snapchat, for example) have done, we’re delivering significantly more value by simplifying an industry. “Keep It Simple…” is a phrase that we are all familiar with and at wRipple we follow this motto. Partnerships and merchants are already secured, and we’re ready to take off this summer.  Put down the scissors and join us!

There is a reason why that less than 1% of coupons are redeemed*, daily deals are in decline, and consumer’s use less than a 1/3 of the loyalty cards that they sign up for**.

And if you’re one of the people that no longer use coupons, daily deals, or loyalty cards then you know why. Finding a deal is just way too cumbersome a process. It generally involves either sifting through endless coupons, purchasing a daily deal, filling out an online survey, sitting around and waiting for a sale/flash sale to pop up or you have to “check-in” or earn points just to save 10% or get that free cup of coffee.

Additionally, if you’re looking for a specific recommendation on where to get a product or service, you either have to search online or physically ask family and friends. Neither of these solutions comes with an ability to save money once you finally land on that ideal purchase.

Merchants are running into problems in the world of sales promotions as well.  They go through great efforts to put these deals out there: designing the promotion, spending the dollar trying to find the right marketing channels to promote it, and then keeping their fingers crossed that the marketing channel will deliver viewers.  And merchants have no way to get their customers to share deals.

It seems that the only ones that are benefiting are the companies that make these savings obstacles in order to collect useless data and sell that data to merchants. But as we all know, marketers can’t predict our future and merchant’s don’t need to know how many times you walked past their store.

wRipple is about a lot more than just keeping discounts simple. wRipple 1.0 is one of the few marketing methods that allows a merchant and brand to base their return on investment, (ROI) on actual purchases. 

wRipple 2.0 will be the first discount software that will allow a merchant and brand to track purchase usage and social media influence across multiple social media channels at once.

*NCH Marketing

**Colloquy 2015

wRipple delivers for consumers.  A simple download of the wRipple app onto your mobile device is the first step towards getting the discounts you want, when you want them.  Once activated, users can search for qualified merchants near them, head over to that merchant, and receive a discount on pretty much everything that they are buying by using wRipple. No more coupon clipping!

wRipple delivers for merchants.  While current methods are proving too costly for merchants and not delivering results, wRipple is proving to be a remarkably simple and effective way to market.  No more teaming with sales partners and hoping consumers see their deals.  By taking advantage of wRipple, businesses everywhere can get their brand directly in front of their best customers. Even better, it exposes them to a new vital group: the friends and connections of these customers.  Our simple sharing feature allows deals to be easily dispersed amongst social circles like never before.

wRipple offers consumers what they seek most from a discount and loyalty program – simplicity.

And wRipple is the only app that enables merchants to virally and precisely target the potential new customer group that they seek most – the friends and connections of their existing customers.

• 70% - The percentage of consumers polled that stopped using loyalty cards that they signed up for. The reason cited was the length of time in order to accrue enough points to earn a reward
• 305 billion – Number of coupons generated in 2013,
• 2.9 billion – The number of these coupons that were redeemed, a 17% drop from 2012.
• 40% - The percentage of merchants that offered a daily deal and won’t offer them again
• 29 – The number of loyalty cards that the average American is enrolled in
• 12 – The number of loyalty cards that each American uses more than once a year. This number has been decreasing each year
• 90% - Percentage of social media users that say their purchases are influenced by social activity such as recommendations made by their connections
• 75% - Percentage of social media users that have clicked on a product link that was posted or recommended by their connections
• 40% - FB users who say that they bought an item after favoring it or sharing it
• 245 - Average number of friends on Facebook for the typical Facebook user
• 359 - Average number of FB friends of your connections
• 156,569 - Average number of FB users that one single FB user can reach

Data from NCH Marketing, Dotcom Distribution- May 2013 Survey, Colloquy 2015 Loyalty Card Report, Business Insider 

The Tech Muscle Behind wRipple
wRipple is really a combination of 2 apps – one for the consumer and one for the merchant.  A QR code is generated when each new consumer signs up, and serves as their unique identifier.  A second QR code is generated when a merchant creates a new offer.  The two apps then “talk” to each other to verify the QR code, validate the QR code, post the message to a user’s social media account, and record the transactions.

Other Key Features
At its core, wRipple is remarkably simple and a huge money and time saver for both sides.  But it delivers in a few other ways, too:

Limitless scalability.  Our app can be integrated easily into any type of business, from an e-commerce giant to a local food truck.

Deals structured based on merchant needs.  To control costs, discounts are formulated and executed manually by merchant.  Merchants have complete control over their deals

Save and pay all at once.  Payments are still handled in the traditional way, but we’ve built in the potential to integrate with ApplePay.

Automatic social sharing ensures additional exposure.  In return for the savings they accrue, posts are automatically made to consumers’ Facebook pages.  These posts outline the savings with a particular merchant, and can be chosen from a dropdown or written individually.

Searching for shared deals.  Users can also search their wRipple community’s shared deals for even more savings.  These “secondary” deals are slightly better than original ones, and don’t require the automatic Facebook posts.

We’re just a spring chicken, but we’re growing up very fast.  We opened for business in late 2014 and have hit a number of significant milestones already:

App is live.  The wRipple app was approved by Apple’s App Store in late April 2015, and also by Facebook

Tried and true, and about to launch.  We did a test launch of the unique user experience in April 2015 and were successful.  We’ll launch with several food trucks on June 7 and then with several stores on June 13. We are on pace to double the number of merchants each month.

Big partnership secured.  We currently partner with Soma StrEat Food Park – a foodie community where over 100 local food trucks rotate on a daily basis for lunch and dinner crowds.  We’ll be working on site with their vendors to market and solicit new users. We have similar deals in the works.

Generating significant interest from partners.  We’ve garnered interest from several other brands for “white label” opportunities.  They include Off the Grid in San Francisco and Trump Hotels.

Intellectual property.  We own all IP aspects of the software and technology.

We’re taking care of the present, but have our sights set on the future at the same time.  To find out more about where we’re ultimately headed, please request access to the business plan side of our Fundable profile.

wRipple was founded late last year as the result of group collaboration between 4 business veterans.  We’ll stop at nothing to get it in the hands of every consumer and merchant!

The brainchild and CEO of wRipple, Michael runs all day-to-day operations except for coding aspects.  He came up with the idea after watching his wife, an active working mom, struggle to find deals.  Mr. Brescia was a senior managing director for FXCM, where he grew the Institutional Sales Division from $8 million in annual sales to over $250 million in 8 years.

Juan is a major capital contributor and COO of wRipple.  He’s a Senior Managing Director in charge or operations at FXCM, an NYSE listed company with over $450 million in annual revenue.  Mr. Café overseas operations for more than 13 offices around the world, with his team servicing over 250,000 clients

As a project manager, Chris handles the technological aspects for wRipple.  Originally a lawyer by trade, he left the world of law to pursue a career in technology.  Mr. Baggio is currently employed at Activision, where he’s a Senior Manager.