The startup has created a rewards club app that helps small businesses compete with big chains.
As owner of the KC-based gas station chain Fav Trip, Babir Sultan saw firsthand how hard it can be for mom-and-pop convenience stores to compete against the national franchises.
The big-name brands could afford pricey marketing campaigns, while the smaller shops struggled to bring in new customers on a tight budget.
Sultan wanted to create a rewards program geared toward the modern-day consumer, one that would give local businesses a fighting chance. He launched Royal Loyal in April 2014, and with help from veterans of the Kansas City business community, has put his company on the fast track to success.
Royal Loyal is not a punch card or a key fob, but an app with geo-sensing technology that customers can download to become loyalty rewards members. Store owners use it to run specials and send email and Facebook alerts.
Customers get a chance to support local businesses. Local businesses get an affordable marketing platform to help them compete. It’s a win-win.
“The best way to communicate is on a mobile platform,” Sultan said. “Long gone are the days of people standing in a Statue of Liberty costume holding a sign or giving out punch cards for loyalty. It’s 2015, and there is a better way.”
To give his company a jump start, Sultan went through UMKC’s Entrepreneurship Scholars Program in 2014 and was a member of SparkLabKC’s Class of 2015. He also participated in Kauffman FastTrac and 1 Million Cups.
These experiences “opened up doors of opportunity for us,” Sultan said. “We learned to think differently and now have a better understanding of management and entrepreneurship.”
Royal Loyal also landed a Digital Sandbox KC grant, which enabled the company to invest in cutting-edge iBeacon technology.
“With iBeacon, if you pass a Pepsi cooler and have our app, you can get a message saying, ‘Pepsi on sale for $1,’” Sultan said. “It’s a whole new way of influencing customer behavior and selling more product.”
In Kansas City, there is no shortage of networking opportunities, which is precisely what landed Royal Loyal a deal with epay, a prepaid payments processor based out of Leawood.
Thanks to the new contract with epay, Royal Loyal’s app will be available to customers shopping at 12,000 convenience stores nationwide. Rubbing elbows with other KC entrepreneurs helped Sultan grow his other business, too. Fav Trip now has five stores operating throughout Missouri and Kansas.
