Designing the Digitalized Shopping Experience
The global retail landscape is experiencing a major
transformation and becoming increasingly
competitive. With the advent of the digital era,
conventional modes of customer service are getting
disrupted. Even the way a customer shops or shares
his/her opinion on their shopping experience is being
propagated through technological mediums such as
websites, social media, blogs, and vlogs.
To keep up with these changes, the retail industry has
undertaken drastic changes in recent years to improve
business operations and become more customer oriented.
Change is the name of the game. One of the major players
of this revered game is SoundPays.
Started in the year 2015, this Toronto, Canada based
company has made quite a name for itself in the retail and
purchasing innovation space. SoundPays is an early-stage
media-tech company with a cutting edge, mobile
engagement solution that utilizes patented ultrasonic
sound wave technology to connect consumers to
advertising content in real-time.
Sounds Like a Plan
SoundPay’s vision is that every single point-of-sale (POS)
will eventually be transmitting the purchased ticket
directly to the phone through ultrasonic sound to enable a
remote, phone-based payment engagement by the
shopper.
SoundPays aspires to emerge as a new standard in touchless,
contact-less payment. One that will be as universal as
QR Code payment currently is in China. Every single
screen or display, whether in or out-of-home, will be
perpetually transmitting supplemental information
(ultrasonically) which can be downloaded and instantly
acted upon by any phone, in any location, at any time.
Fundamental Contributions
SoundPays has been instrumental in the transformation of
the retail and purchasing landscape through technology in
recent times. But to add to its portfolio, SoundPays
dictates two fundamental things as its most notable
contributions in the sector:
1. In-store or physical locations of conventional
commerce: The ability to make in-store checkout
purchases at a safe distance from the counter and
salesclerk, while at the same time eliminating any
requirement to touch or handle a physical payment device.
2. Out of store: The technology at SoundPays allows for a
truly mobile experience. The company enables advertisers
and broadcast content providers to engage their audience
as they are seeing/hearing their content, whether it is
playing on TV, online, OOH signs, live events, or stadium
screens. The technology provides a profound opportunity
to convert viewers to the ‘power-of-the-moment’ by
combining next-generation marketing, advertising,
commerce, and user convenience in a truly mobile manner.
Viewers can engage while on the fly, while relaxing
watching TV or sitting in a stadium: a complete
omnichannel offering, provided from a single SDK
(software development kit).
Going Ultrasonic!
The customers of SoundPays admire the company for its
user-friendly services despite the advanced tech it keeps
in its arsenal.
These patrons are provided with a solution based on the
company’s patented technology, that they can deploy at
either the media side (enabling advertisements or
programming content with supplemental information
accessible directly from the content) or at the app/wallet
side which allows for receiving and easily accessing the
supplemental information.
This distinguishes both the media content from all
competitor content and the app/wallet capability above all
other conventional apps/wallets. But what makes the
service provider so unique is its patented ultrasonic
technology.
Soundpays sound codes are comprised of a combination of
near-ultrasonic inaudible tones derived mathematically
based on their patented process for converting
frequencies and tones into codes. They are delivered between
mid-18 and 20 kHz, tending to the inaudible frequency.
When an inaudible sound wave embedded into a video is
broadcasted through any type of speaker (TV, phone,
computer, digital sign, stadium speakers, etc.), and when
the SoundPays SDK is activated from a mobile app or
wallet, the mobile device is instructed to listen for tones
above 18 kHz.
The device microphone picks up this sound wave and
the company’s proprietary algorithm then de-codes it
into a human-readable 8- or 10-digit code. This 8- or
10-digit code is then relayed to specific product offers
which are then displayed on the mobile device screen
for review, making it potentially a one-step purchasing
experience.
When fully enabled using SoundPays Commerce, once a
customer clicks on ‘purchase’, the transaction is processed in
the cloud: charging the customer’s selected credit card and
transferring funds to the merchant’s existing merchant account
using the current industry transaction processing ecosystem.
For security purposes, we instruct the microphone to only
listen above 18 kHz. Furthermore, no sounds are recorded, and
no microphone activity ever leaves the mobile phone, and no
microphone activity is delivered to SoundPays server as all the
tones are processed and mathematically calculated locally on
the phone.
A Pioneering Leader
To develop the commercialization strategy, raise the required
funding, and build the team to take the company from a nascent
concept to widespread commercial success, they brought in the
dynamic Steve Doswell.
Steve has been the co-founder or on the initial executive teams
of three Canadian start-ups, all of which grew 400-500
employees prior to being acquired. He has also held executive
entrepreneurship roles as GM of Ericsson Canada and COO of
AOL Canada.
At SoundPays, Steve was responsible for the international
expansion plan, including the signing of a marquee customer in
Europe and lining up the four licensee candidates in Japan.
Steve, as the CEO was also the speaker for some notable
company awards as:
• Finovative Fall (2015) – Best of Show
• Street Contxt (2016) – FinTechTO winner
• Women in payments (2016) – Unicorn challenge winner
• VISA Global Contest for FinTech Startups (2016) -
Finalist
• NTT Data Open Innovation (2017) – Toronto winner
• NTT Data Open Innovation (2017) – Global finalist
• Financial Innovation Japan Business Conference
(2018) – Audience award.
Course-correction and Facing Obstacles
Like many retail solution providers, SoundPays had to fare
through its share of hurdles.
The initial funding was an issue, as it is for most startups in
Canada. Streaking relationships and working closely with
the major Canadian Financial Institutions (FIs) was an
obstacle, as all FIs were at the stage of de-emphasizing and
reducing investments in wallets and mobile payments.
In fact, by late 2016, most entities were de-funding mobile
app strategies, which made it difficult for SoundPays to
establish partnerships based on investing in and elevating
the capabilities of existing apps. In the early days, it
seemed that major entities were highly impressed with the
potential of digitally connecting to media content but
viewed it as a future concept rather than one to initiate at
the time.
To emphasize further on the struggle of the team at
SoundPays, Steve Doswell stated - “Just as the company
started to gain traction and momentum with major entities,
Covid hit the scene and suddenly the SoundPays proposition
became of secondary importance as retail entities were trying
to figure out how to regain traffic in their malls and stores, and
while sports franchises were suddenly having to operate with
empty stadiums.”
The fact that broadcasters, malls, retailers, sports
franchises, cinemas are all focused on dealing with the
impact of Covid above all, and at the expense of their
innovation initiatives represents the startup’s biggest
struggle at this time.
For adapting to the need of the hour, the company
introduced new practices keeping the health and safety of
everyone involved into perspective. Now, all of its
interactions with customers and prospective customers
are exclusively remote. This has made it challenging to
proceed with third-party initiatives.
Steve additionally stated, “Internally, our technology team
has been able to accomplish our product road-map and R&D
objectives for 2020, so this area of our business has not been
materially impacted. However, market-based initiatives have
been.”
Aspiring to Make a Difference
When asked about the strategically driven plans that the
company plans to implement to scale the business in 2021,
the team over at SoundPays graciously provided these five
of their major focuses:
1. Get their two marquee customers back into play. Both
have put their SoundPays initiatives on hold, even
after having very positive results in initial 2019
rollouts. The company plans to help them utilize their
technology as part of adaptive response strategies to
COVID and other issues now facing them.
2. Complete a small ‘Seed’ raise which was started in
2019, but the final closing has been delayed because of
Covid-related factors with several of its prospective
investors. This raise is specifically targeted towards US
VC(s).
3. Complete the product roadmap and R&D initiatives for
2021; including commercializing new technology
designed for the TV and FM radio sectors that was
patented in 2020. SoundPays also intends to file a
third patent in 2012.
4. Close impending contracts with the top-eight of their
key pipeline prospects in North America. All of these
prospects were initially expected to be in the market
during 2020, but all were delayed because of Covidrelated
matters, and the resulting new priorities. They
expect that all will be ready to proceed with initial
plans in 2021.
5. Launching in Japan, the company has amassed a group
of four potential licensees that it has been in
discussion with. It completed highly successful POCs
with three of these entities early in 2020. All of these
led to discussions and negotiations around commercial
launches. SoundPays also signed an agreement with a
fourth entity to collaborate on a commercial launch.
All four entities are major corporate conglomerates or
major brands in Japan. All were impacted by Covidrelated
delays but should be ready to proceed in 2021.
Conclusively, SoundPays is proving to be commercially
viable in dozens of different sites and use cases. The team
is growing, dynamic and enthusiastic, and dedicated to
creating new frictionless engagement and commerce
channels that will inevitably simplify consumer lifestyle
and become an everyday part of our lives.
03 | MM 2020 www.thebusinessberg.com
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