E mail inboxes are difficult instruments as a result of over time they develop into exhausting to handle and customers have to spend so much of time looking for what they’re looking for. And when you’ve got been utilizing one electronic mail tackle in all places, it’s additionally painful to vary that at a later stage. E mail instruments typically fail to establish completely different sorts of emails and group them correctly. India-based startup Flash is trying to resolve it by creating an answer (learn electronic mail ID) that you should use for all e-commerce wants — and it’ll even reward you to make use of the service.
Flash — which is on the market on each iOS and Android — permits you to create an electronic mail ID (with @flash.co area) that you should use on all purchasing platforms, and in return, earn rewards reminiscent of coupons and cashback. When you obtain the app from the Play Retailer or the App Retailer, you may join with a brand new electronic mail ID and use it throughout all platforms to buy issues. After putting an order, you can too observe a number of shipments from inside the app.
Picture Credit: Flash
The inbox is split into two components: Handpicked and Others. The Handpicked inbox has essential emails reminiscent of order supply updates and sign-up verifications whereas the Different part carries promotional emails. In my utilization in the previous few weeks, I seen that some sign-up/verification emails ended up within the Different inbox. The startup stated it’s nonetheless ironing out its filtering algorithm to keep away from that.
Flash’s electronic mail inbox is rudimentary at this second. You’ll be able to solely ahead or reply to emails. Flash stated that subsequent month, customers can have options like archive, auto-forward, and flags.
Picture Credit: Flash
Other than creating a brand new inbox for e-commerce, the app additionally permits you to join together with your Gmail inbox. This enables the app to construct a abstract of your orders within the final 12 months and present a report of your e-commerce bills. Plus, the app additionally fetches orders for cargo monitoring out of your Gmail account.
Rewards
Nearly all e-commerce and fee companies in India have provided some form of reward to customers to spice up engagement and retention. Flash has a few sorts of rewards up its sleeve, too. First, it gives cashback by itself for finishing sure orders or signing up for some companies with a @flash.co electronic mail tackle.
It additionally has particular coupons by way of model collaborations with Walmart-owned Myntra, Puma, pharmacy platform Pharmeasy, and Warburg Pincus-backed electronics model Boat. Low cost coupons are commonplace follow within the Indian e-commerce market. Google Pay, Paytm, and Tiger International-backed Cred provide a ton of those coupons in numerous shapes and types. However typically they’ve quite a lot of caveats hooked up to them.
Picture Credit: Flash
Flash can also be offering rewards for sure “streaks” — purchasing a number of instances by way of a sure model or putting orders throughout a specific class in an outlined time interval. This can let customers earn a mixture of rewards from Flash and types each. The startup gives 1 Flash coin to 1 rupee conversion for rewards. Customers can deposit cash immediately into their financial institution accounts by linking their UPI (Unified Fee Infercae) IDs — which is India’s indigenous fee community.
The corporate
Flash was based by Ranjith Boyanapalli, a former Flipkart government, in April final yr. The corporate raised $5.8 million in seed funding in November from a bunch of buyers together with International Founders Capital (GFC), White Enterprise Capital, and Zinal Progress with participation from the likes of Flipkart founder Binny Bansal, Cred’s Kunal Shah, Udaan’s Sujeet Kumar and Groww’s Lalit Keshre.
Earlier than beginning Flash Boyanapalli was a senior VP at Walmart-owned Flipkart and managed the corporate’s fintech and fee verticals there. In a name with TechCrunch, he stated there’s an enormous worth in leveraging the info of internet buyers by making use of it to supply worth to customers. Flash’s thought is rooted in benefiting from cross-merchant information intelligence by way of a single electronic mail ID, he stated.
“We’re concentrating on round 25 million energy customers in India who store from a number of retailers yearly and have a significant contribution when it comes to market spend within the nation’s e-commerce market,” Boyanapalli stated.
One of many challenges these customers face is extreme spamming of inboxes by completely different retailers, he stated. Plus, it’s exhausting to trace orders by way of emails. Notably, Gmail has rolled out order monitoring capabilities, but it surely’s restricted to sure geographies for now. For manufacturers, it’s tougher to interact clients as they’re bombarded with coupons, which ends up in decrease conversion charges. Boyanapalli stated Flash is making an attempt to resolve all these issues by way of one app.
There are many e-commerce apps in each India and the US that provide both order monitoring or rewards together with Shopify’s Store app, Groupon, and Cashkaro. However Flash believes that it has a bonus as a result of it brings all of those capabilities collectively in a single app.
India’s e-commerce market is about to double in measurement to over $130 billion by 2025, in accordance with Bernstein, and the startup is making an attempt to focus on individuals who will contribute most to these figures. However the overwhelming majority of these individuals make purchases by way of Amazon India and Flipkart, companies that presently usually are not enjoying ball with Flash for any rewards program.
What’s forward?
After this launch, Flash is targeted on rolling out options reminiscent of month-to-month studies, inbox search, electronic mail labeling, archiving, and auto-forwarding within the subsequent few months. The corporate can also be constructing its personal “Login with Flash” authentication mechanism that e-commerce companions can combine into their service.
Other than characteristic rollouts, the startup can also be desirous about class growth by tuning its product for journey and OTT (Over the air) companies purchases. So sooner or later, the app may allow you to handle all of your tickets and subscriptions. Flash can also be gearing as much as launch its choices within the US this yr, the place the e-commerce market is a lot larger than that of India — each when it comes to high-value customers and gross income.