Leading major brands and companies participating in Solana Breakpoint say Web3 tools powered by Solana, the layer 1 blockchain, are driving tangible returns and delivering deep customer data insights.
The four-day conference in Amsterdam in 2023 attracted a variety of businesses and initiatives from Web2, Web3 and traditional backgrounds. A standout takeaway was the adoption of Solana-based tools and services to innovate payments and loyalty programs.
Boba Guys, a growing American bubble tea brand modeled after Starbucks, has revealed how its new customer loyalty app pilot program is providing insightful data while also appearing to inspire customers to return to its San Francisco stores.
Related: Visa taps Solana to expand USDC payment capabilities
The five-week program relies entirely on in-store promotions for customers in the area. 600 users joined, and 31% of orders were later attributed to the loyalty program. Co-founders Bin Chen and Andrew Chau also reported that the app resulted in a 67% increase in monthly visits and a 65% increase in spend among loyalty program users.
Josh Fried, director of commercial business development at the Solana Foundation, told Cointelegraph that the development of the loyalty program provides a tangible use case for commercial customers looking for Web3, blockchain-based tools to build their business and customer base.
“Initial data from the Boba Guys pilot shows that we are actually improving their business results. A real retailer with 25 stores came on stage and said this Solana-based program delivered an 800% return on investment,” Fried explained.
For every $1 Boba Guys invests in the program, the company receives $9 in revenue in return. Fried said it’s a “legitimate business boost” and the company plans to roll out the app in stores in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles.
recent Integration Solana Pay’s arrival on e-commerce platform Shopify is another sign that Web3-based payment tools are becoming a viable alternative to traditional businesses. Fried reveals how merchants can start providing meaningful feedback on the adoption of their payment channels.
The MadLab NFT program noted significant growth in sales from cryptocurrency-native users holding cryptocurrencies. “These users are holding USDC on Solana, waiting for the utility company to use it to pay for something, not just make transactions. The community uses the integration to start purchasing goods,” Fried said.
Another anecdote comes from an entrepreneur in Denver, Colorado, who has turned to Shopify’s Solana Pay integration to drive sales of custom fragrances. The appeal of this payment solution lies in Web3’s ability to help drive e-commerce sales:
“When you buy e-commerce products, you don’t smell anything. Right. ‘For a storyteller, I need Metaverse, I need Web3 technology to bring the next level to sales,'” he said. .”
Despite his optimism, Fried acknowledged that there is still a lot of work to be done to drive adoption of Solana Pay and Solana-based Web3 tools. He worked at Google for a decade, overseeing the development of Google Pay, and stressed that it took the tech giant years to see adoption of its increasingly popular payments service.
“It helps when someone like Visa comes along and says, hey, we’re going to start doing interbank settlements on the Solana blockchain,” Fried explained. Major payment processors and payment rails are critical to driving the adoption of Web3-based payments.
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