In a rapidly growing world of buy now, pay later, one local woman is working to change the model with an app that allows users to create a “treat yourself stash”.
Renee Shields, 31, says while owning Nelson retail store Palm Boutique for five years she realised that many shoppers were unhappy with debt-based schemes and lay-buy options that were a “nightmare” to manage.
And so, the idea for Fundpay was born, and it can now be downloaded in the Apple and Google Play stores.
Renee laughs while reminiscing of choosing to spend on fashion instead of dinner whilst studying, and in more recent years getting creative when explaining those slightly larger purchases.
She says the aim of Fundpay is to reduce debt-based spending and remove buyers’ remorse that people often feel after buying something that they haven’t yet paid for.
“For the last two or three years I’ve been looking at doing a business start-up, I loved Palm but it’s quite public, we had some personal tragedy last year, so I needed a change personally,” she says.
For the past few years Renee had been quietly developing Fundpay inside her business and decided now was the time to go full-steam ahead.
“I noticed a gap in the options that exist in the market at the moment.
“A lot of people don’t like debt-based solutions like Afterpay, it takes away the enjoyment of spending, you get this after-guilt that pops up everytime a payment comes out.”
She says she could see that customers wanted a way of breaking down the cost of the purchases, some of which can be hundreds of dollars.
”At Palm, some things were expensive, but it was all New Zealand made and good quality,” she says.
“Initially I just tested the concept by letting customers build up a bit of in-store credit and that was going really well, so I went through an incubator programme called Co-starters which was facilitated by NRDA, then decided to launch an app.
Customers can make one-off payments, automatic transfers or transfer extra money at the end of a low-spend week into their Fundpay account.
When you are ready to spend some or all of your balance you generate a code from the app, which the retail store enters into their till system and transfers the money.
Renee says an important part of the concept is that you can’t spend more than is in your account, unless you pay the rest to the retailer at the time of the purchase.
“It allows the customer to build up a positive balance, like a little slush fund essentially, savings for splashing out at their favourite retailers” she says.
“A lot of service industries manage their own in-store credit balances which can be a bit of a nightmare in terms of keeping track and accounting- wise.
“Essentially we are removing the admin from the retailer.”
She says it’s been expensive to build the app but now that it is live, she says the focus will be on growing the business next year and taking on staff.
“It’s just me and my local developer, so it’s been a lot of work, but to see it in the App Store and Google Play was my biggest woohoo moment.”
Renee says she has had the unwavering support from a few local businesses as they iron out any issues with the platform.
It only costs the merchant a small percentage fee when a transaction is completed which she says is quite competitive compared to other platforms.
If the customer returns the item, Fundpay refund the fee for the transaction – a New Zealand first Renee believes.
“It’s a good time to get on board because the marketing will ramp up and retailers will kind of come along for the ride.”
She says for the app to be successful it has to be large-scale.
“Mass adoption is the goal, it’s quite an ambitious project.”
Businesses can sign up to Fundpay at fundpay.co.nz or shoppers can download the app in App Store or Google Play.
