Singaporean startup pours $15 million into Vietnam's cashback market

ShopBack Vietnam debuted in Vietnam in August

Truc Nguyen, country manager of ShopBack Vietnam said that the startup unveiled its beta launch in Vietnam in late 2019 and made an official debut last August. It has continuosly improved the app and invested $15 million in the local market. To date, VND22 billion($956,520) in cashback has been given out to ShopBack users in Vietnam.

"Depending on the market conditions, user demand, and readiness of our technical and product partners, we will expand our offerings and raise more investment to make cashback a new shopping habit in Vietnam," she said.

ShopBack is backed by e-commerce group Rakuten Group Inc., one of the better-known companies that dole out cash-back rewards for online purchases. Other investors into the startup are EV Growth, Temasek Holdings, and Credit Saison, among others. ShopBack has raised a total funding of $134 million since 2014.

The increasing number of internet users, rising internet penetration, and steady increase of the e-commerce share of total retail sales in Vietnam makes it a core and high-potential market for ShopBack. Vietnam presents a tremendous opportunity for the startup to grow and succeed in the digital space, with large marketplaces such as Shopee, Lazada, Tiki, and Sendo – all of whom are its merchant partners – experiencing record-breaking growth in the past years.

The country manager said that it will focus on increasing the number of partners and clients in the next 2-3 years. With the current growth trajectory, ShopBack is likely to reach 2 million users in Vietnam.

In line of booming e-commerce demand, Vietnam has welcomed more online cashback platforms such as Finhay, Cashbag, Catback, and ShopBack. However, there are aslo some fraud cashback scams that customers need to be aware like consumer rewards app MyAladdinz. There is a key difference between legitimate players from fraudulent ones, which are operated like multi-level platforms. They require shoppers to submit money to the apps to receive rewards, after a short time they will shut down and steal all users' money.