This is a blog focused around our company quodos which we founded in January 2022. Hopefully you’ll find it interesting! We wanted to use the blog to share a little more around our company and the rationale for its foundation. We hope to share with you - our story, thoughts, ambitions and experience in the digital gifting and loyalty market.

Lets start with why quodos? Do you have gift cards sitting in a drawer at home, wondering…Am I ever going to get the chance to use those? I wonder what balance is actually on that card? I wonder is it still valid? Will the Merchant still accept it? Or better still, have you ever found yourself in front of a shop thinking…hmmm I have a gift card for this shop but I can’t remember where it is? I have been there so many times, I reckon we all have.

Worse again, I’ve been that soldier, standing in front of a busy POS with a gift card in one hand and a debit card in the other, asking a frazzled salesperson, if they could check my balance on the gift card , while the person next in line sighs and shakes their head! The embarrassment then reaches new heights, when you find out that the card which held lots of value a year ago, has a few cents left because of monthly charges, that you never knew about.

What if we could use the latest developments in digital technology to eliminate all of this hassle? I mean gift cards and vouchers are to be enjoyed, they have been given to you with love and appreciation and using them should be a reflection of that sentiment.

So we got to thinking about both sides of the transaction - was there a solution that created a “WIN-WIN” scenario for the User and the Merchant. Merchants often do not know who their gift card holders are? They spend significant time and resources in developing a social media following across Facebook, Instagram and the latest channels, building a large follower base. However can they directly translate marketing spend to sales in their stores? The digital era has eliminated so many barriers to competition, its hard to develop and nurture a loyal customer base. We as consumers have so much choice. Yes, as a merchant, I can develop my own dedicated App, but is that what consumers really want? Would they prefer to have an App that they feel is their own, where they choose the offers, promotions + news they wish to consume?

quodos was born with the idea of offering both Merchant and Consumer the best of digital technology across payments, outreach + engagement. We wanted to create a user friendly App that stored all of a user’s gift cards, offers + promotions in one place, digitally. Always at your fingertips, effectively in your pocket, ready to be used when you wanted and not sitting in some drawer, forgotten and expired. We wanted the user to have real time balances, whenever they wished, with a full transaction history of everything they ever did with their gift cards and vouchers. We wanted to make the transaction at POS or online seamless, just touch and go and let the App worry about the correct gift card balances and transaction details.

For the Merchant we wanted to provide a mechanism for them to reach their valued customers directly with tailored news, offers + promotions. Moreover having the ability to understand what their customers really responded to, would provide them with an ability to adjust their messaging and offers, in real-time. If a Merchant can tailor their offers then they can provide the right value to the right customers at the right time; Truly rewarding loyalty and providing real value - In my opinion that creates loyalty and that gets me back in the store repeatedly. I now feel that the Merchant cares about me, personally and I will respond to that attention.

So, that’s what we have built and that is the essence of quodos - An App that stores your vouchers, gift cards, offers and promotions, directly connected to a prepaid debit card in your digital wallet. quodos knows which Merchant you are transacting with and deducts the correct amount from the correct Merchant. The user simply taps and quodos does the rest! For the Merchant they can reach all customers, gift holders or any sub segment of their base and tailor specific “calls to action” optimised for their business and customers. They can let their customers know their latest news and entice engagement with offers+promotions, that their customers demand.

As we progress with this blog, we will discuss specific features of the App and why we have designed these into the product. For example recently we have added the feature to “Add your debit/credit card” to the App. This enhancement means that (unlike my experience at POS) you can tap your quodos card and the App will take the value from your gift card or voucher first and then take any remaining balance from your debit card - a single seamless transaction!!!!

Thank you and Talk soon