A man takes a picture of an artwork by British graffiti artist Banksy at Lower Manhattan in New York, October 15, 2013.
A man takes a picture of an artwork by British graffiti artist Banksy at Lower Manhattan in New York, October 15, 2013. Reuters/Eduardo Munoz

In 2014, a group of Australian, American and French entrepreneurs came together with the aim to build a platform that would disrupt the way digital offers are being consumed by smartphone users from around the world, as well as build an ecosystem that would reward those same users for their loyalty. This idea gave birth to Sh8pe Ltd, a London-based technology startup.

Today, the Sh8pe platform is in beta, with a live launch date scheduled for April 15. It aggregates and curates over 100,000 digital offers, from e-commerce merchants like Amazon, eBay or Hotels.com to mobile apps, premium mobile content, surveys, sweepstakes and more. Most importantly, the Sh8pe platform has global reach, with merchant and digital offer representation in 196 countries around the world.

Sh8pe is an organisation with a deep passion for profit sharing and for providing a top-notch experience to its members, which the company calls “Power Affiliates.” The number “8” is important to the Sh8pe organisation as it symbolises infinity, prosperity and balance, a set of values that sit at the core of the company’s philosophy. At the heart of Sh8pe, one can find two deeply integrated sister platforms, MobPower and Sh8pe Rewards.

MobPower

MobPower is Sh8pe’s leading product offering. The platform allows its member Power Affiliates to earn cash and rewards for performing specific actions like shopping online, filling out surveys, downloading mobile apps, watching videos and more. MobPower aims to become the largest digital cashback and rewards network in the world, by tapping into, aggregating and curating the tens of thousands of offers available globally at any given time. These offers are then presented to MobPower members “on a platter,” via a clean and uncluttered interface, the MobPower Android app.

MobPower Marketing Group (MPG) is an internally operated marketing platform designed to help members find new Power Affiliates, with each new member automatically being tagged and assigned to the affiliate ID of the referring member. It provides its members with access to a live dashboard and reporting interface that lets them track their campaign results as each campaign unfolds.

The MobPower app enables users to turn both paid and cashless transactions into a source of revenue. The app serves as a gateway to anything money can (any standard e-commerce transaction, like an online shopping purchase) and cannot buy (free mobile app downloads, games, promotional videos, surveys and more). Users are afforded direct, one-click access to top-notch merchant offers from Amazon, Google, Walmart, iTunes and eBay among many others.

Redeeming points for cash is a fast and effortless process made possible, thanks to MobPower's in-app redemption store. Each user earns a 25 percent commission on the value of their own, direct in-app consumption. If a user refers the app to a friend, they can earn an additional lifetime 5 percent override on that referral. If a user shares an offer to a friend, they can also earn loyalty points, which are redeemable for valuable cash and noncash prizes every month, with the top prize being awarded to the user who has accumulated the most loyalty points during a calendar month.

Sh8pe rewards

Sh8pe Rewards offers its users exclusive discounts and coupons that previously were only able to top-performing affiliate marketers. Via Sh8pe Rewards, a portion of each transaction (the affiliate commission) is pooled and distributed to each Sh8pe member on a monthly basis, depending on each member’s respective rank within the organisation.

The Sh8pe Rewards platform makes online shopping easy and handy as it was developed as a cross-platform shopping application, with a presence on the Web via www.sh8perewards.com as well as via sister iOS and Android applications under the same name (Sh8pe Rewards). Sh8pe users earn revenue by simply redirecting their existing online purchasing behaviour to the Sh8pe Rewards platform. Sh8pe then splits the commissions it earns with its members.

While there are a number of digital loyalty platforms currently in existence, Sh8pe seems to be the first such platform to be built as a truly global ecosystem from the start. In addition, virtually every product or service that can be purchased, traded, downloaded, viewed, redeemed or subscribed to online is available and can be monetised via Sh8pe’s sister applications.

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