eVouch Takes The Future Of Social Sharing Global

eVouch, the Kiwi startup helping businesses globally to utilise their customers’ personal networks to extend their marketing reach, is the result of a ‘pandemic pivot’ that saw the founder build a brand-new app in just 8 week, as part of the Shopify 2021 App Challenge. eVouch quickly gained over 500 customers and has since closed a pre-seed raise of half a million dollars. Investors include GD1, Phase One, Uniservices, Shopify’s ex-GM and scout funds for some of the world’s largest VCs, with eVouch currently delivering an impressive minimum of 17 x ROI for business owners.

eVouch helps businesses to turn their customers into authentic brand advocates through incentivising them to share their experience with their personal networks via high-quality, branded images, in return for rewards. The platform is the only one of its kind in New Zealand and has experienced ‘viral’ growth globally - with some eVouch customers reporting 36 x the marketing ROI for their spend. Over 500 ecommerce brands all over the world currently use the app, including Solawave and Natural Patch, with the majority located in the US.

“Marketing is changing, it’s all about community now, and what better way to build community than through the word of mouth of your shoppers? At eVouch we’re building a way for all businesses to access the most authentic form of marketing, at scale. That’s more powerful than any ad you can ever pay for. It doesn’t matter if you’re a small cafe or a multinational e-commerce chain - we exist to make marketing easy, authentic, and automated,” explains Eugene Yao, Founder of eVouch.

The future of social sharing

Vignesh Kumar, Co-Managing Partner at GD1, adds that “Modern marketers understand Intuit’s Scott Cook’s adage that ‘a brand is no longer what we tell the consumers it is, it is what consumers tell each other it is’. Merchants are feeling the pain of not being able to market in the same way due to changes in iOS; and they’re looking for new ways to reach their audiences. What Eugene and the eVouch team have built allows companies to tap into the power of social endorsement, at scale, extending the traditional marketing model of 1:1; to that of 1:1 to many. It’s clever; and it’s a concept that we expect to catch on as the future of social share marketing,”

Pandemic pivot

eVouch had its beginnings in helping local restaurants gain business through word of mouth from diners sharing on social media - a concept that served them well until COVID-19 all but destroyed the hospitality industry. Widespread lockdowns halted all business for the new startup; but it also gave Eugene time to ‘think outside of the box’.

“A few months prior, I had taken a photo of my brunch and posted it on my Instagram. A few minutes later, a friend walked into the cafe - they had decided to head out after seeing my pic. That was a ‘lightbulb’ moment. I made a sale, although I’m just a software developer! The power of word of mouth is well known, but with social media, we have the power to scale that word of mouth. I wanted to build out eVouch to combine the trust inherent in word of mouth with the scale of social media - which has great synergy with ecommerce,” says Eugene.

From small beginnings to hundreds of customers

The company used the time during the pandemic to pivot their prior offering from what was essentially a ‘restaurant review’ platform, featuring 150 restaurants (including the likes of

Madam Woo, Everybodys and Daikoku) to an app that would enable them to reach a much larger, broader audience. In a move that would see them fast-track their idea, they entered the Shopify 2021 App Challenge - essentially building their app across 8 intensive weeks that would enable them to build on Shopify, gaining access to merchants around the world, as well as garner promotion on the Shopify App Store.

“Unlike referral programmes which ask someone to target only a handful of people in their network, eVouch enables businesses to tap in to absolutely everyone in a customer’s social network. The app enables businesses to create and upload high quality creative and verify that the creative has been posted, as well as taking care of sending the customer a voucher for their efforts. It’s easy, and it’s frictionless. “With eVouch, customers of Shopify websites can post an Instagram story about the brand; and instantly be rewarded for their marketing effort just like influencers. At scale, this democratises marketing to a consumer level, while enabling brands access to the power of word of mouth,” explains Eugene.

eVouch plans to use the funds raised to support growing international demand, and is looking to bring in additional developer support.

About eVouch

eVouch is a marketing services company that exists to help eCommerce brands reduce customer acquisition costs and expand their market size through the word-of-mouth of their customers. In just a few clicks, eVouch mobilises customers to become a brand’s most powerful influencers through Instagram and be rewarded fairly for their effort. Bundled into a single experience, eVouch provides all the tools, tricks and gadgets, brands need to get their own customers talking about them - while simultaneously tracking how far the word has spread, and how effective it has been in converting new customers. eVouch was part of the Shopify App Challenge 2021 and the team plans to focus on the e-commerce giant to leverage the closed ecosystem of brands willing and ready to scale.

For more information please visit e-vouch.com.

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