Jen LaForge 0:00

Welcome to Stacked. I'm Jen LaForge. This is a show about how real people and real brands are stretching value in today's economy. Not theory, not generic money advice. We're getting into how rewards, loyalty, partnerships, and digital tools actually work and how they're being used in real life. Let's jump in. Welcome to today's episode of Stacked. I am especially excited for today because we are going to be busting myths about Racktoon.ca. We have scoured our member services team for the most asked questions, concerns, and barriers to trust, as well as Reddit and social, to find out what our customers are really saying and what's really holding them back from joining Rackton.ca. I'll be joined today with a number of folks from the Racketton.ca team, the people who are behind the scenes. And to start off, I'd like to introduce you to Michael Bowles. Michael, tell us who you are, how long you've been here, and what do you do at Rackiton?

Michael Bowles 0:54

I'm Michael Bowles, I'm Senior Director of Operations. I've been with Rackiton almost 10 years. And I oversee member services, including data privacy and compliance.

Jen LaForge 1:05

Fantastic. Now I might call you Bowles through this because that's what we call you internally. So I'll try Michael Bowles, you'll know who I'm talking about. So let's start off with I think the number one misconception, what most people think, and that's that rackton.ca is a scam. It's too good to be true. Nobody gives away free money. Um what can you say about us being a scam?

Michael Bowles 1:26

It is absolutely not a scam. It's not free money coming out of the air. We send traffic to merchants, the merchants pay for that traffic, including your shopping trip. And when they pay us that commission, we share it with you.

Jen LaForge 1:39

Okay, and when you say merchants, you're talking about the retailers on our site.

Michael Bowles 1:42

All of the retailers on racket.ca.

Jen LaForge 1:45

We're gonna have some work uh work language in here, so I'll correct you on that one for uh for our visitors. So that's absolutely right. Michael, the big question do we actually pay people?

Michael Bowles 1:55

We 100% pay people. We pay people four times a year. And um those quarterly payments are usually February, May, August, November. You can expect about the middle of the month to be paid uh if there is money in your account to pay. And the first time that you purchase, we will try to get you that payment uh more quickly. So uh you don't have to wait for the quarterly payments. We want you to know that the system is working and know that uh that we're not a scam.

Jen LaForge 2:22

So it's a big misconception, and we know that. So the moment you have that first cash back land in your account, we're gonna prove it to you with check, PayPal, interact, we get it to you.

Michael Bowles 2:33

Exactly. All you have to do is give us a payment method.

Jen LaForge 2:36

Okay. Payment method. That sounds like a great segue into data. Um so we're talking about payments, payment methods. A lot of people are nervous or concerned about data in general these days. But in particular, with joining a site like Raccutin, that already feels like an unbelievable opportunity to get free money. Um, so talk a little bit about the data. How can you ease concerns around what we collect and what we do with our members' data and particularly as it pertains to payments?

Michael Bowles 3:05

Sure. We actually collect very little data. Um we don't need any of your banking information. We just have your uh the information that you give us to sign up, uh, an email address, and uh your physical address if you want to check, your email address if you want to be paid by PayPal or by Interact. Um we obviously, in order to pay you, have to track uh your shopping trips to the stores that are on the site, but we do sometimes get questions about selling data to third parties, which we absolutely do not do.

Jen LaForge 3:38

Absolutely do not do that. You mentioned earlier the information that we need when you sign up, and then you said email. Just for clarity, what are we capturing on sign up for racketon.ca?

Michael Bowles 3:48

It's really just uh your your contact information, your name, your email.

Jen LaForge 3:52

Okay, that's it. It's too simple. Yeah. So simple program. Okay. Myth number three, it's too much work. So when people think about being a part of a program like rackton.ca, they've gotta hunt for the deals, they've got to remember their coupon codes, they have to do the tracking, they have to remember their stores where they shopped at, they're gonna be waiting forever, maybe uploading receipts. I mean, how simple is it? And what do they the members have to do?

Michael Bowles 4:18

Well, with our browser extension, you actually have to do virtually nothing. It will let you know when there's an opportunity to get cash back on a site that you're visiting to shop anyway. It will flash to let you know. It'll take you um to show you what offers are available, what coupon codes may be available on there as well, and it will make sure that those coupon codes don't invalidate your cash back. It'll do all of that for you. You can also access the stores through the website itself, which is one extra click, which I don't think is too much uh too much extra work for the money. Uh so it's actually very, very easy.

Jen LaForge 4:51

Very easy. And same with an app as well. We do have the app, so toolbox uh extension. We've got the desktop site, we also have the app. So even if you're on the go, yeah and it's one click.

Michael Bowles 5:00

Right.

Jen LaForge 5:00

That's it. Yeah. No receipts.

Michael Bowles 5:02

No receipts, no uploading of receipts. You can see all of your shopping trips on your account page. There's really no tracking to do on your own. That's right, because we're doing the tracking. Exactly.

Jen LaForge 5:13

Okay, perfect. All right, I'm gonna throw one more question at you. The question is you're a user. Were you skeptical when you first joined Racquetin, either as an employee or as a customer, and what surprised you the most?

Michael Bowles 5:26

I actually wasn't skeptical in the beginning because um I'm an old-time internet guy who was around when you could everyone had a blog and you could link to Amazon and be paid for sending traffic there and get your commission. So I understood how that commission worked and that Rackin is just sharing that commission with members. But I did sort of come to it late. I didn't really think of it as um, you know, back in those days you wouldn't make very much from a click. I didn't think of it as a way to actually save a lot of money. And then uh I realized um actually when I came to the company and interviewed with you that uh it actually was uh some really amazing cashback rates and it really does add up.

Jen LaForge 6:06

Perfect. Thank you so much, Bulls, and thank you for 10 years with Rackton.ca, keeping our data safe uh and helping our customers come to the the rakton.ca site and get their account today.

Michael Bowles 6:17

Thanks, Jen.

Jen LaForge 6:18

I'd like to introduce you to our next rackin.ca team member. Uh Darren, why don't you tell us who you are, what you do, and how long you've been with us.

Darren Frost 6:26

Sure. My name's uh Darren Frost. I'm senior graphic design manager, and I've been at Rackton for just over four years.

Jen LaForge 6:32

Just over four years. Now I know you and your entire family are big users of Rackton.ca, uh, so you can speak to these questions with heart. Sure. The first myth I'd like you to bust is that cashback isn't real savings. What can you say to that?

Darren Frost 6:47

Well, I came prepared to this, and I every year my group releases a year-end email. And in that email, it tells you how much you spent that year and then how many shopping trips you went on. So last year I received in cashback $388 on 34 trips. So it works out to just under $12 a time. So there is real savings. Some are bigger, some are smaller, but over time, if you use it, okay.

Jen LaForge 7:15

Is that your personal account? Do you share an account with the family, or do you also have a few?

Darren Frost 7:19

My wife has a separate account.

Jen LaForge 7:20

She keeps her own cash back.

Darren Frost 7:21

When we're doing uh Christmas shopping, she can uh yeah.

Jen LaForge 7:24

There you go. Okay. I don't share my account either. My cash back is mine. Next question. Um, you need to spend more to save more. So the idea that you have to be buying a lot in order to earn a lot of cash back, how can you debunk that myth?

Darren Frost 7:40

I use it out of habit all the time now. I'm uh a desktop shopper, so I use a browser extension a lot. So I don't even think about it. I go to the site and it just pops up and I activate my cash back. Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less. I've I've had some big ones. I bought a couple laptops and stuff like that where the cashback is large, and I've had smaller ones where it's everyday essentials, like getting my cat litter.

Jen LaForge 8:03

So cashback on cat litter, it all adds up.

Darren Frost 8:06

It all adds up.

Jen LaForge 8:06

Perfect. I love that it's a habit for you. Um the next question is um I'm probably forgetting cashback all the time. Myths, can you bust that?

Darren Frost 8:15

Uh some people do. Um, it it happens, um, especially if you're in a rush or you're not thinking about it. But that's one of the reasons I use the browser extension all the time. It's so hard to forget because the little bubble pops up and says activate cash back, and you say yes, please. And there it is.

Jen LaForge 8:31

Perfect. So a lot of people also think that it's just pennies. You're getting pennies on the dollar. How can you debunk that, but also encourage our members on maximizing their cash back? What can they do to earn more?

Darren Frost 8:44

Sure. Again, I came prepared. Um, I've been here, as I said, just over four years. My total cash back is about 1800 over those four years. So that average is about $450 a year. So it's not pennies. It it does add up. If someone said I'm going to give you $450 a year, you would you would take it. I I also look for promos. I I love a good promo. You know, sometimes a brand will come out and they'll say, you know, 10% on this, and that really adds up pretty quickly.

Jen LaForge 9:13

Okay. The flash sales.

Darren Frost 9:15

Yes.

Jen LaForge 9:16

Talk about our flash sales, because that's not one merchant doing a promo at 10%. Tell me you're tell me you're using our flash sales too.

Darren Frost 9:23

I am. I and uh I I'm in the loop, so I I see the emails going out, so I get excited. And uh, even in my group we talk about some of the merchants that are coming up, and uh we get excited about it and we we wait till it comes out and we make our purchases and yeah.

Jen LaForge 9:39

Okay. Um last question for you, Darren. The shopping experience when you go through Rackutin, a lot of people believe, or the myth out there is that it's not the same selection or the same prices at the retailer. We're actually redirecting you to a subsite of deals that you can earn cash back on. What can you say to that myth?

Darren Frost 9:59

That is not true. Um, when you go, it's the same price that they always offer. It's a win-win for everyone, it's a win for the company, the merchant, because they are getting customers they might not usually get. So for them it's a win, so they take some of that money, and it's just an extra marketing fee for them that comes back to us as a consumer.

Jen LaForge 10:21

Okay, so it's the same site.

Darren Frost 10:23

Same site, same everything.

Jen LaForge 10:24

Same same products, same prices.

Darren Frost 10:26

Same, yep. That's real? That is not a myth. Not a myth.

Jen LaForge 10:30

Okay, thank you so much, Darren.

Darren Frost 10:31

No problem.

Jen LaForge 10:32

We are now joined uh with a member of our sales and account management team. Why don't you introduce yourself?

Synge Chen 10:38

Hi everyone. My name's Singh. I'm an account executive for Rockett's and Rewards Canada, which means I work with all the brands that we have on site, or a good portion of them at least. I'm their primary point of contact if they want to book anything with us, if they want to change their cashback rate, all that stuff. And uh I've been with the company for five years now. So it's been a great ride so far.

Jen LaForge 10:55

Five years. And Singh, you also started in our operations team. So you have a very uh solid foundation and how all the mechanics work in the background as well.

Synge Chen 11:04

Yeah, that's right. So when I started in operations, it got me understanding how our back end works and understanding what we actually need from the different brands. So I think it's definitely helped me transition into a sales role and give a little more insight to our partners so that we know they're just doing everything correctly.

Jen LaForge 11:19

Right, perfect. So uh one of the big myths that we wanted to bust today is around the shopping experience on the store side. And so uh one big common myth that we pulled out of Reddit was that you can't earn cash back on top of sales at the retailer. What can you say to that?

Synge Chen 11:35

That is definitely a big myth. I think one of the big things we pride ourselves on is we call ourselves the most rewarding way to shop. And if you can't get cash back on sale items that people want to buy and you can't take advantage of the promos that are going on with the store, then that's not a rewarding way to shop. So you can definitely stack cash back on top of sale items. I'll caveat, yes, there are sometimes a few exclusions. If a store sends you a private code, then that doesn't work because you're giving a private code. So the store already gave you something, they're not going to let you stack it. That's not something in our control, unfortunately. But if there's a site-wide sale, it's open to everyone, you can of course get cash back on it.

Jen LaForge 12:10

Okay. And so do you, as part of your job working with those retailers, tell us about how you make sure that we're giving that that most rewarding way to shop in terms of those private codes and maybe there's other opportunities. How do you work with the retailers to ensure that most rewarding experience?

Synge Chen 12:30

Yeah, I think the big one is every retailer we work with, we consider them our partners, and we want to make sure that we can help them hit their goals as well. I mean, in an ideal world, we're all saying like this retailer can give me 100% off and we get everything for free. I think all of us would love that. Or there's something 70% off, and the retailer says, go ahead and give them another 30%. But the reality we live in is they're still in the business of making money, and we have to help them make money to an extent. So it's understanding what their limitations actually are and coming up with them and saying, okay, you want to drive sales here. What's the actual margin we can go into? This is the cashback we'd like to push. Can you support it? What type of budgets do you have from marketing so that it doesn't necessarily come down to our product cost? But what can we actually fund on both our ends to make sure that the customer feels rewarded, the customer feels valued? And in the end, we're helping each other hit our own priorities and our own goals.

Jen LaForge 13:21

Okay, fantastic. I also know you work really hard to bring exclusives to rackin.ca. So offers, deals, coupons that you can only get if you're a member of Raktin.ca. Is that part of your working with retailers as well? And how often does that happen?

Synge Chen 13:37

Yeah, for sure. I think a lot of retailers they've actually seen that we're such a powerful platform and our members are so loyal to us that they want to target our members more. They can see that, hey, there's a subsect of members. We have 8 million plus members. They can see however many thousand shop at their store with Racketin. They want more of these members. So they're saying, how do we tap into your market base and your database because we can't get them ourselves? What can we offer them? We're already pushing 5% or 10% or 15% cash back this day. Can we give a new customer something else? Can we give your members something else so that we can also tap into these high-value customers that they want? So if they give us an extra 5% or 10% code, we make sure we tell them you have to set it up so that again, you can stack your cash back on top of it. You can't stop commissioning cash back if you give them this sale. We need both. And usually they love it because they get great customers.

Jen LaForge 14:28

Fantastic. Let's talk about the customers as well. Because another big myth that we uncovered is that a lot of individuals believe that you have to be a shopping addict. And so it's only for those that absolutely love shopping and shop all of the time. We have over eight million members. Are there eight million shopping addicts in Canada?

Synge Chen 14:46

I really don't think so. I think our shipping service would be a lot more delayed if we had all those people. I think in the end, everyone needs to shop for something, right? Whether you're buying something for your house, you're buying a gift, you're buying travel, you're booking hotels, you're booking flights, you're booking experiences, you're buying groceries, even, right, with Doordash and Skip the Dishes, for example, or Instacart food delivery, someone's always buying something. A lot of times you just don't know the rewards out there for you. So I think as long as people are getting used to online shopping, there's always a way to reward yourself. Even myself, I use the platform a lot. I don't buy things every day or every week as much as I would love to. I just I can't, but I make sure if I want to buy something, I'm getting the most bang for my buck. I'm getting the best value out of it.

Jen LaForge 15:29

Fantastic. I do know saying that you are an avid traveler. You love travel. Uh you're also an excellent traveler, and you've brought me into your own lounges. I've said before I'm not a lounge person. So travel with rackchton.ca. There's some myths around that. That's a challenging one because it's a little bit different than just shopping at a retailer. So as an expert behind the scenes, can you talk to your cashback shopping with travel on Rackton.ca?

Synge Chen 15:55

Yeah, no problem. I think travel, you're looking at a few main things. So one is the flight, two is your accommodations, and three is kind of your experiences or excursions or kind of accessories you need to travel. So the accessories and experiences, it's a little bit easier because a lot of these retailers, it's all pre-booked. You buy it in advance, you pay in advance, and they can track everything there. A lot of times, experiences, even if you don't go, you're charged for it. I'm sure some of us have been there before. I bought something, oh shoot, my itinerary changed, I can't get a refund. You know, that's very easy to track. That's easy for us to make note of. But when we talk about actual flights and we talk about actual hotel stays, that's the one where it gets tricky and people sometimes are confused because we don't actually get paid on that until you finish your travel. And even when you finish your travel, the airline or the hotel or the booking agent actually needs to verify with the exact place you stayed or exact place you fly, you flew, did this person actually go on this trip? Okay, they've won on it. Let me do my billing. And when they're doing their billing, it takes the airline or the hotel or the accommodation provider some extra time to also pay. So there's a lot of verification and validation that needs to go on. It's not just uh, let me book this hotel now. It's a thousand dollars for seven nights, eight nights, whatever it is. I'm traveling in seven months, I want the money now, but we don't get the money now. It's also because the hotel doesn't get the money now for the most part. So we don't get it until after everything's validated. I know waiting can be tough sometimes, but in the end, if you want to get that 10% or 12%, it adds up, right? Like 10% on a thousand dollars, it's a hundred dollars coming out there.

Jen LaForge 17:31

So it's well worth the wait.

Synge Chen 17:32

Yes.

Jen LaForge 17:33

You touched on another myth that I think you'd be great to address, and that's on reversals. And so when you purchase an item at a retailer, it doesn't fit or it's not what you expected, and you want to return that to the store. A big myth is that you now have to go through Raccutin and that's complicated your return process. Can you talk to what returning items that are purchased through your Racketin shopping experience, what that's like for our customers?

Synge Chen 18:01

Yeah, honestly, don't think of it as anything special. You can just go to the store and return as normal. If you shop with Racquetin, yes, we know you bought an item. That's how we pay you cash back. So at the same time, if you return it, the store is gonna tell us, hey, this person didn't actually buy the item, so we don't need to pay you cash back on it. And we say, that makes sense because you didn't actually buy the item, right? So don't think of it as anything too fancy, just return the item as normal, and everything else is done for you on the back end.

Jen LaForge 18:29

Okay, fantastic. Singh, anything else you want to share uh with our audience in terms of the biggest myth you've encountered with your friends and family, or even a great piece of advice since you're such a savvy shopper?

Synge Chen 18:42

It might take some time for me to think of some myths. I feel like I do address them sometimes. A lot of times it just comes down to what we've talked about, it's the stacking portion or it's the travel and waiting portion. But a lot of times I also tell them like if it doesn't happen right away, or if you think it's taking too long, write in to us and we have a team that takes care of this. And sometimes things do break for whatever reason, but if we don't know until you write in. So I think that's also a tip. If you don't get that cash back, say you did everything right, you're in our app or you're on our website, you click through, you want your 10% cash back on your new pair of shoes, whatever you're buying. You wait a week, it hasn't come in, write to us. A lot of times all you have to do is reach out and then we can investigate that problem. And beyond that, I think just keep looking on the site for deals. I know a lot of people want to scour other forums, Reddit, red flag deals, whatever it may be. A lot of times you're missing things that are right there on site just because someone else isn't shopping for it. And those people who post the deals usually shop for very specific things. It might not be what you're looking for. If you want to find what you're looking for, look on our site, look at the brands you love. That's how you're gonna find the best deal all the time.

Jen LaForge 19:45

Fantastic. Great advice. Thank you so much, Singh.

Synge Chen 19:48

Thanks, Jen.

Jen LaForge 19:49

So while we were talking through myths with Michael, Singh, and Darren, Matt was behind the scenes and he stepped forward and said, I have two myths that are really nagging at me. You touched on them, but he wants to dive in. So, Matt, welcome to the other side of the camera. I am here to at least get one more very loyal member of Rackutin. So, what can I debunk for you today?

Matt McCoy 20:10

Well, there's two things top of mind when I'm using Rackutin. The first thing is data and privacy with all the apps out there and all the stuff going on. I was wondering how Rackutin handles data and privacy.

Jen LaForge 20:21

Absolutely. This is a big one, and it's probably uh the most concerning myth. So I'm happy you're asking us to dive into it a bit more. Michael had uh talked a little bit about how simple the signup process is. So, what are we actually collecting when we are signing you up as a member of Rackuton? It's your email address and you set yourself a password. Um, and we have CAPTCHA to make sure that you're not a robot on the site, but it's really that that simple. You now have an account with us. The other data piece that we're collecting is around your payments. And so if you want to receive a check, you're gonna obviously give us your home address in order to mail that check. Um if you want to be paid quickly and safely, you're going to use Interact. Well, if you're Canadian and you use Interact for an e-transfer, you know it's via email. So all we're asking for is the email address to send you that e-transfer email for deposit. And the same with PayPal, it's simply an email. Outside of that, we're really collecting your shopping behavior. So we know the stores that you're clicking on and where you're shopping. What we don't know is what you're purchasing at the retailer side. They don't send back information, they don't send back your credit card information, they don't send back the details of what's in your cart. They're just sending back the total amount that you spent on to run the calculation for your cash back. That's all the information that we have. We're not selling it to any third parties. We protect our data. It's highly secure. We have an entire InfoSec team here that works very hard to protect your data, your privacy, and uh ensure that it's not being used in any malicious ways. So it's our data, and we're using that to customize your experience on rackchin.ca. So we know your favorite. Stores, we're gonna let you know when that you have 10%, 15% cash back at those stores, and we're gonna try and curate that most rewarding experience as we can for you using that very limited data that we actually have. So very safe, very secure, very minimal collection. We're quite proud of that. Um, and then again, just tell us how to pay you with an email. It's so simple, it's hard to believe.

Matt McCoy 22:21

That's crazy. I mean, it does sound ridiculously simple. And so I'm wondering just do things ever go wrong? And if you know, if there's a thing that goes wrong with my payment, how do I go about solving that?

Jen LaForge 22:33

Yeah, things go wrong all of the time. I I think when you something is complex behind the scenes operating this this type of business. Um, and so there could be exclusions on a certain product that uh you missed, and so the retailer is not sending that cash back, you're not getting that cash back, you're wondering why. So we always encourage our members to make sure they're looking at the interstitial and the store pages to note exclusions. Sometimes tracking just breaks. I mean, we have millions of shopping trips that are going through our platform on a daily basis, and we're working with over 750 different retailers. Something could go wrong. That trip didn't get tracked, whether it was a bad link or it broke somewhere along the lines in your experience. And so we work very closely with our member services team to isolate where those breaks are. Members, we encourage them to write in and let us know hey, this didn't go right. We're gonna make it right. That's our core value, is to get you your cash back. And what they're doing is actually helping other members because again, we might not be aware that that link had broke. And so what we're now doing is working very closely with the retailer to reconcile those trips with those offers to get our member that cash back. There's other things that can go wrong. Uh for instance, you forgot to click through Raccuton. So we do forgive uh our members for forgetting until the habits formed. And it might be as simple as you already added items to your cart, then you remembered last minute and you went through uh Raccutin, and that link is not capturing all the items before you added them to the cart. And so that's one key reminder that I'll give to everyone. Start your shopping trip at Rackuton.ca every time. Make sure you're clicking that link to the retailer before you add items to your cart. That'll minimize the chances of things breaking.

Matt McCoy 24:18

Awesome. Last question Do you have any other tips that weren't covered in today's episode that you as a shopper on Rackiton have used?

Jen LaForge 24:26

I do, and I don't think this will be a popular tip because most of us hate getting emails. We're bombarded by emails. Everyone wants you to subscribe to an email. But why I encourage signing up for a rackiton.ca email is we are curating across our 750 retailers all of the deals, all of the offers. We're gonna let you know when there's a flash sale and you can earn 10, 12, 15% cash back on your shopping, which is a really big deal and it can add up. And so instead of going to 15 or 20 different emails or retailer sites, you're gonna open that one from Rackuton, you're gonna know the best deals of the day, you're gonna get the coupons, you're gonna get the cash back. Please sign up for our email and unsubscribe to the rest.

Matt McCoy 25:12

Awesome. Thanks, Jen.

Jen LaForge 25:14

No problem. And that's it for this episode of Snacked. If you found this useful, follow along as we interview leaders shaping the future of retail and learn how value really works behind the scenes. And if there's a topic you want us to unpack, I'd love to hear from you. See you next time.