Exclus1ves.co.za, the online store for Exclusive Books, has introduced “Stickers”, a rewards system for its customers.
The company says users can earn smiley stickers from their activities on the site, such as rating and sharing books, which can then earn them discounts against online purchases.
Ben Williams, GM for digital retail at Exclusive Books, likens smileys to virtual currency. He explains that smileys can be exchanged for discounts of up to 25%, or used to activate group discounts on items. According to Williams, discounts are awarded in increments of 150 smileys, which gets the user a 10% discount sticker. These discount stickers can be used for up to a year.
According to Williams, to use discount stickers, users simply drag and drop them onto the book they want and the discount is instantly applied.
He adds that Fanatics members can earn more points by linking their Fanatics accounts to their Exclus1ves accounts.
The group discounts are Exclus1ves' answer to Groupon, says Williams, adding that users can tag books with smiley stickers in order to activate group discounts of up to 25%. The size of the discount depends on how many people tag the book with smileys. Williams explains that each user is limited to 10 smileys per book, meaning 25 people are needed to activate a 25% discount, by each dropping 10 smileys on a book.
Williams describes this as one of the “gamification” aspects of Stickers because it encourages users to get their friends involved to drive up discounts.
Once the discount has been activated, it is valid for 24 hours, says Williams. He adds that users can also keep track of which products are being triggered for a group discount, by logging into Exclus1ves.co.za. The discount is open to everyone, not just those who dropped stickers.
According to Williams, Stickers also lets users rate and share books via e-mail, Twitter and Facebook. Users do this by dragging relevant stickers from a pallet, located on the left-hand-side of the screen, and dropping it onto a book. There are dedicated stickers for e-mail, Facebook and Twitter, and users can rate books out of five, using star stickers. According to Williams, these activities also earn users smiley stickers.
Social bookselling
Williams describes Stickers as “social bookselling”, as it brings word-of-mouth to bookselling.
He explains that the world of retail has changed, and that retail has become social. For example, he says, people gauge sentiment via social media networks, and also read consumer reviews.
According to him, the platform also improves discoverability and curation through crowdsourcing. He explains that the products that have the most stickers, including ratings, smileys and social media stickers, appear most often on the Exclus1ves.co.za site.
He adds that the platform will also drive data, providing consumer analytics, such as which books have been shared often, or which books have received high ratings from users.
According to Williams, Exclus1ves will introduce more stickers in the future, such as 'book of the month' stickers and 'celebrity' or 'author recommended' stickers, which will also help drive sales.
Share