RewardME

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  App screenshots

Inspiration

Do you ever have to search through all your physical rewards cards when you buy a coffee at a local cafe? Because we certainly have had this experience and it can be quite hard to keep track of them all.

Most small businesses don’t have a rewards card that you can access through Google/Apple Pay. Without an IT team, local shops have not digitised their rewards cards yet. What if there was an easy way to allow them to create a digital rewards card that all their customers could use? This is where RewardME comes in!

What it does

RewardME digitalises all your local rewards cards! The platform is both for local businesses and everyday customers to register their rewards cards.

As a customer, you can store all your local rewards cards and keep track of how many stamps you’ve collected so far towards some reward such as a free ice cream 🍦

Customers can also explore nearby local shops (through the Discovery page on the app) and sign up for their rewards cards to further support small businesses!

We believe our app has great potential to help small businesses grow sustainably.

How we built it

The front end for the RewardME web app was designed using Figma and React. For the backend, we used express.js (a node.js framework) and deployed the web app using Netlify.

Challenges we ran into

Throughout the hackathon, we ran into many challenges and asked mentors for help many times! Here are some of the key challenges

(1) We struggled with front-end and back-end routing and communication and we resolved the issue through MDN Fetch API and Cross-Origin-Resource-Sharing (CORS)

(2) We also had issues connecting a database, we initially tried using Firebase and then MongoDB but struggled doing this. We decided to use a local database in the end.

(3) We had issues with processing data dynamically from the Express.JS backend to the React.JS front end. After research and trial and error, this was done with Fetch API.

(4) We also had issues with creating a functional login screen which authenticates account log-ins securely and we’re still working on this

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re very proud of how well we worked as a team to develop a functional web app. Every challenge we faced, we navigated together to figure out.

We managed to create a web app using React.JS and Express.JS, two frameworks we had never used before this hackathon.

We were very unfamiliar with HTTP methods but managed to use them effectively by reading up on documentation on how to process data. We’re also very proud of our user interface and visual design of our app.

With front-end, we’re very happy that our bottom navigation works and that when you click on a card on a wallet, it opens an individual card page with the card specific data.

What we learned

Our team went into this hackathon with very little knowledge about creating web apps and we learned an incredible amount over 48 hours.

We learned how to use React.JS and Express.JS to create the front-end and back-end and enable them to communicate with each other.

We also researched and learned about different databases such as Firebase and MongoDB.

Furthermore, we researched ways to deploy our app and how to approach thinking about making the app commercially viable.

What's next for RewardME

So our future plans for our app is to create a business-side of the app which has a barcode scanner so that local shops can scan customers’ cards during purchases. This side of the app will also allow shops to view all the rewards cards they’ve distributed out and any related analytics.

We also plan to implement data analytics so that businesses can see which rewards programs are most profitable.

Our app could also be integrated with food ordering apps such as UberEats or Mr. Yum so that when a user makes an online purchase, their rewards points are automatically updated

Our Revenue Model

To make our app commercially viable, we plan to have a free sign up for businesses where they can get the first 250 rewards cards for free to distribute to their customer base. Businesses can get some basic analytics on their rewards program but they must pay for every additional 100 cards.

We plan to provide card design services that businesses can purchase to enhance customer experience.

Businesses can purchase data analytics report packages, which uses AI modelling and prediction, so that they can see which rewards programs offer the most value.

Shops can also pay for promotion and be featured on the discover page for positive initiatives such as being sustainable and green

Built With

• express.js
• fetch
• figma
• mui
• react-router
• react.js