Brief:
- Ibotta, an app that lets mobile users earn cash back from shopping, added a payments feature that offers additional savings. Instead of applying to individual products at checkout, Pay with Ibotta distributes rewards for the entire transaction at checkout among 30 participating retailers and restaurants, according to a company announcement.
- Applebee's, Banana Republic, Chipotle, Gap, The Home Depot, Lowe's, Old Navy and Sephora are some of the first national chains to participate in Pay with Ibotta at launch. The company will add more retailers and restaurants over the next several months, per the announcement.
- Ibotta said its new payment feature will save retailers on credit card processing fees because the payment comes directly through the app. Pay with Ibotta is set to become widely available for all app users soon.
Insight:
Ibotta's payment feature gives shoppers greater incentives to download the app and start earning additional rewards. The core app acts like a digital coupon-clipping service that offers savings on individual products, but the new payment feature expands the savings possibilities to entire transactions at select retailers. Ibotta has been downloaded 30 million times since the company launched in 2012 and has delivered more than $525 million in cash rewards to users, per its announcement. Previously, the app has partnered with brands like Bud Light and Jarlsberg Cheese on digital coupon campaigns.
Pay with Ibotta positions the company to participate in the rapidly growing market for mobile payments and couponing. The global mobile payments market is forecast to grow to $3.7 trillion by 2024 from $897.7 billion last year as more businesses let shoppers pay with PayPal, Samsung Pay, Apple Pay, AliPay and WeChat Pay, per Mordor Intelligence.
Younger consumers are leading the way with the adoption of mobile payments, according to a survey by Origin, Hill Holliday's independent research arm. Twenty-two percent of survey respondents under 40 said they use mobile payments daily, while 45% of people over 40 said they've never used mobile payments. The most popular payment apps on mobile devices in the U.S. are for person-to-person (P2P) transactions, eMarketer found. It estimated that P2P adoption of apps like Venmo will grow to 96 million users, or 40% of all mobile phone users, this year from 82.5 million in 2018.
Smartphones have become a key part of the shopping journey for many U.S. consumers, with 34% saying they use their phone to compare prices while in store and 28% looking for coupons, according to consulting firm BRP. About two-thirds (67%) of surveyed consumers in the U.S. said they're likely to shop at a retailer that offers mobile coupons over one that doesn't, the company said. Ibotta's new feature aligns with these trends by streamlining mobile payments, couponing and rewards into a single app function.