Toronto mobile application developer
MobileFringe, a player in the business-to-business retail market for three years, has entered the consumer app market with its location-based discount program,
Push a Deal.
Company co-founder and CEO Steve Sorge says the application offers discounts to people at businesses near their current location, and is more accessible to small retailers and food service companies than popular group-buying platforms.
"The feedback we were getting was that the group-buying model only worked for certain kinds of businesses, and for many retailers, the deep discounts and fees were unsustainable," says Sorge.
His software, he says, allows companies to offer smaller discounts of 10 to 15 per cent. MobileFringe will take a 25 per cent commission on the discount. Companies pay fees soley based on redemptions--sales made. That fact, plus the location-based nature of how it "pushes" alerts to customers' phones, make it very attractive for smaller businesses. "It's set up to be a long-term strategic tool in the mobile space for a lot of these companies that do not have the budget to create their own apps."
MobileFringe was founded in November 2008 and has established itself as a developer-for-hire in the retail industry, especially serving shopping centres. In the lead up to launching their first consumer application this year, they've hired four new employees, bringing their staff to 10, and moved from their "typical early-stage office" of 800-square-feet into a new 2,400-square-foot office.
Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Steve Sorge, CEO, MobileFringe