Following the news that rewards platform *shopt had given a thorough update to its app for retailers earlier this year, Convenience Store spoke with director Alexa Hester to discover how the system not only helps retailers, but has largely been informed by them.
Hester started by explaining a little of what the *shopt app actually offers: “It’s a rewards and engagement app for independent retailers. So it’s multi-brand, multi-category, and it’s trying to bring all the brands retailers sell in their stores together to basically offer them cash incentives for engaging in content, watching videos and stocking products.”
Retailer panels
Hester believes part of the app’s appeal is the way many of the benefits stores will see when using *shopt are actually informed, and approved, by retailers themselves.
“We have a panel of retailers from a shop side that we’ve had for about five years now,” Hester explained. “I think they’re really important to us because if we’re sat in an office trying to decide what’s the right thing for the app, we also need to go out and speak to them.
“Our panel is full of quite well-known retailers that work with lots of brands, so we’ve got Bobby Singh and Julie Kaur and others. They’re helping us champion what we need to be doing, what we need to drive forward.
“We also leverage our ability in the app and the fact that we visit lots of other retailers dotted around the country, and we’ve found they’re all quite different. Some of them that are very heavily involved in brands and you’ve got some that are literally working 55 hours a week, running their store.
“We try and make sure we take on the feedback from all the different types of retailers to make sure the app works for everybody.”
Bi-annual meet-ups
Stemming from *shopt’s retailer forums, Hester said the viewpoint of retailers across the UK has been invaluable: “They’re open and honest. At any one point we’ve got eight or nine in the room. It happens around twice a year, and we’ll get a sense of what’s going on in their business.
“There’ll be common challenges. In July, everybody was flying high on England doing quite well in the World Cup and the heatwave, and those two combined are brilliant news for our stores and sales.
“But then there’s different challenges. We go around the table to get an understanding of what’s going on with their business and we’ll share things that are planned from a *shopt perspective, whether that’s development or initiatives or competitions, and basically get their feedback.
“I’ve seen things come off the development roadmap because we positioned it and the retailers have said ‘I’m not really bothered about that, that isn’t important to me.’”
App gamification
A key strand from a recent meet up with *shopt’s retailing foot soliders was the issue of gamification within the app, a burgeoning trend already seen within some wholsalers’ apps.
Hester said: “One of the things we spoke about was loyalty and gamification. We were talking about point systems and earning points. A lot of the retailers said they thought we were overcomplicating things, they said ‘what you do is really good - do more of that.’
“They steered us in a different direction. They said what they actually wanted was more access to information. They could access things about legislation, but nothing was in a digestible way for them to be able to tap and go.
”Retailers want an app that’s going to help them…”
“Retailers want to know what they need to do by the April, or October, if they’re getting ready for particular legislation. They want an app that’s going to help them, to bring all these things together and run their store more effectively. So my ambition for the app for the next two or three years is to move from just being a reward and engagement app to being one that helps them run their store better.”
Fuller picture
But as good any retailer knows, what goes on sale at a store isn’t the full picture when it comes to their business.
Hester also knows this, thanks, once again, to her team of working retailers: “They definitely bring ideas. When I was at an event doing judging in the summer, I was talking to a couple of retailers and they said there’s a lot to do to run their store, and what they need staff to do daily, weekly, monthly - and there’s no obvious way to manage or monitor that.
“So now, they can bespoke that list and use *shopt to ping that list to the staff member. Even if they’re not in the store, they’ve got visibility. Things like that - which are not overly complicated, development wise - would massively help people. They bring things like that to the table.”
Wider issues affecting retailers also impact the app, Hester said. “Retailers have said sometimes brands don’t always understand what it’s like in their stores.
”They always talk about margin pressure, obviously, and they invest such a lot of time making the right decisions because they will know the margin everything in that store makes them because they’ve got to make the right decisions of what to put on that shelf.
“We also obviously talk about crime and shoplifting, which goes in peaks and troughs in terms of how much of an issue that is for them. Legislation came up a lot in the last chat as well.
“Then there are more vape and tobacco changes coming in, and they want to know they understand that. Do they feel ready for it? Do they understand DRS? Does that affect them? I definitely feel like there’s a place for us to play in working with the people giving this information, helping us put it all into a digestible format, otherwise it’s a bit overwhelming.”
While *shopt might not match well with larger, franchise-managed stores, Hester added that there are advantages to working closely with retailers: “Where stores are managed by say, Morrisons Daily, we might not be the right app.
“But retailers such as Julie Kaur will be making their own decisions about buying. This is the key thing, and is where *shopt can help.”
FMCG collaborators
To date, *shopt has worked with FMCG brands including PepsiCo, Mars, Diageo and more, with a further outreach now spanning alcohol companies like EJ Gallo and Oyster Bay. Looking forwards, the app is looking to recruit more with SHS Drinks and its WKD brand coming onboard soon. It also works with suppliers from the tobacco gantries like JTI, BAT and PMI.
“I want retailers to open up the app and see a range of products that mirrors what they’re selling in their stores.”
“I want retailers to open up the app and see a range of products that mirrors what they’re selling in their stores. I want them to feel incentivised for all of those categories,” Hester added.
Looking ahead
The priorities for the remainder of 2026 for *shopt, Hester concludes, are preparations for Christmas and further gamification of the app. “It’s quite simple in what it does and I don’t want to overcomplicate it - I don’t want to add loads of flashy things and stop retailers getting to the crux of it.
“Retailers really want the education I mentioned to be ongoing around the right range - but not just from a brand’s perspective. It should come from a category perspective too. But they’ve been in the game a long time, so they know what they’re doing.”
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