Swipii helps local businesses attract, reward and retain customers with its big brand tech and instant cashback offering powering a levelling of the playing field between small local and large online retailers.

Since launching the app in 2018, Swipii has helped local businesses increase customer engagement and spend, generating spend of £440k to date. Even during lockdown, Swipii personalised offers have seen businesses increase customer spend by 16%.

The app is currently used by almost 100 businesses, predominantly in Scotland’s central belt and the company is currently working, including with British BIDs to roll out the service to hundreds more businesses across the country as high streets begin to reopen.

As businesses look to reopen and rebuild the Shop Local message has never been more pertinent, as small businesses fight for survival after being closed throughout much of 2020/21 - while at the same time large online stores gained custom (Amazon saw revenue jump 40% in 2020 and posted an 84% rise in profits).

The firm has revealed that consumers have discovered the joy of supporting local - 54% of UK consumers say it’s important to them to shop locally and 43% saying they get a boost of happiness when they support local business owners.

Swipii said that these tough economic times shopping local delivers more money back into the local economy - research shows that £10 spent with a local independent shop means up to an additional £50 goes back into the local economy.

The firm intends building on these favourable market conditions by extending its offering throughout the UK and building the world’s largest local marketplace. The app will give local businesses at high streets up and down the country, the data insights and marketing tools to compete with the big online businesses in attracting customers whilst also impacting consumers where it counts - in their wallets!

It’s been estimated that local brick and mortar businesses are operating decades behind online businesses - with more than 83% of UK retail trade occuring offline contributing £306bn to the economy, the Swipii app redresses this.

The Swipii app has 26,500 registered users. Despite lockdown, 33% of them still made at least one cashback qualifying transaction each month throughout 2020 with the average cashback amount earned per user being 4.1%. Swipii customers have saved between 1-30% on transactions in 2020, with one Swipii user cashing out £55 on a single balance withdrawal.

Louis Schena, Swipii co-founder and CEO, said: “Local independent businesses form the backbone of our economy. The unfortunate truth is they are decades behind online businesses and big corporations when it comes to the technology they have and as a result are at a significant disadvantage. COVID has widened this disadvantage and our mission is to level the playing field as markets open up! We all have our part to play in shopping local with benefits ranging from investing in our communities to even reducing our carbon footprint!”

Swipii is backed by VCs such as LocalGlobe and Par Equity.