If you live in the US, you probably own a coupon folder filled to the brim with discount coupons from all the retail stores you buy in. Polish company Qpony.pl has found a better solution: their smartphone app aggregates coupons, flyers, promo codes and other deals from hundreds of retail companies, including worldwide brands such as Starbucks, H&M or IKEA.
The founder of Qpony.pl, Tomasz Jabłoński, came up with this idea during his stay in the United States. The app started out shortly afterwards as a student project. Jabłoński was joined by Marcin Lenkiewicz, an English philology graduate, and Krzysztof Łuczak, an accounting graduate (and a current PhD student).
From the very beginning, Qpony.pl was creating very intentional content. “All discounts in the app are chosen basing on the analyses of our users’ behavior and needs,” said Jabłoński. “Qpony.pl is the only application that aggregates all of the smart shoppers’ essentials.”
The application is very easy to use. After you have specified your city, the app shows you all discount coupons, flyers and deals available. You can browse through them or search for a certain brand. Once you have found the discount you want to use, you can either show it to the cashier to redeem it, copy it to complete an online purchase or save it for later.
One of the most successful investments of Qpony.pl was introducing beacon infrastructure. Their Q-beacon transmitters are located in largest shopping malls, local restaurants, retail stores and cinemas. They communicate with the users’ phones via Bluetooth, offering them additional discounts and coupons to redeem.
In 2012, AIP Seed Capital invested 100k PLN to buy 15% of the company’s shares. Three years later, these shares have been sold to a new investor for an astounding sum of one million PLN.
In 2016, the company acquired another smart shopping app – Blix, a store flyers aggregator. Together, these two applications have over 1.2 million active users each month. This merger made Qpony.pl one of the leaders on the Polish m-commerce market.
