Refunder.se, a cash-back site with consumers eager to pay

Refunder.se, a cash-back site with consumers eager to pay

Today, I talked with Fredrik Ohlsson, CEO of Sthlm-based Refunder. Refunder is a so-called “cashback” site, a site that gives money back on everything the members shop online. Cashback sites are  a crowded space and have been around for a while now, so I was interested to hear what made Refunder different from all the others and if it is possible to make money in this segment.

They have roughly 200 online shops covering 35 different categories with over 1,2 million products up and running on their main website, Refunder.se. For the online retailers they provide an efficient sales channel, connecting them with shop-focused consumers. Fredrik says that customers from Refunder are very willing to close their deals:

A customer coming from Refunder has approximately 35% higher order value than a customer coming from elsewhere.

Fredrik started his career at MTG as a trainee back in -94 and has since 1999 been an entrepreneur within media and IT. His last company, ZoomVision was focused on production and distribution of live webcasts from Nordic stock listed companies to institutional investors around the globe. ZoomVision was acquired by NasdaqOMX in 2010. After that, Fredrik left Nasdaq to start Refunder 2012. The remainder of the team consists of Joakim Kempff, co-founder, who has a background as CEO at Dallas Sthlm and as investment manager at Novestra and the other, Victor Dahlborg, has a background as marketing manager at Pricerunner, A-com and MTG.

Back to my original question, is it possible to still make money in this segment, Fredrik says that they are definitely making money:

We have a Cost Per Order deal with the retailers and the networks. This commission we split with our members. The CPO-level is up to the retailers, which makes it a risk free sales/marketing channel for them.

We are very happy with our two key conversion rates (1. from visitor to member and 2. from member to shopping member) and we are building up the members directory on Refunder at a rate that exceeds our expectations.

With Bitcoin, the crypto currency, being the biggest hype right now, and a market value that differs everyday. I was curious if it was something that Refunder had looked in to supporting:

We are looking at several different transaction solutions, though Bitcoin hasn’t been one of them so far.

Fredrik continued to comment that the big next step for Refunder is to launch their product in more international markets, although they are still working on proving that their business case and technical platform works here in Sweden.