Corporate Finance Associate, Casey Portors, discusses My Rewards International's (ASX:MRI) recent agreement with Alibaba's Tmall Global Platform, one of the largest e-commerce brands in the world, with the Company's Executive Chairman, David Vinson.

The agreement allows MRI to assist in sourcing Australian brands and products that can be offered for sale through Tmall - Alibaba’s B2C e-commerce platform in China. David says that this arrangement delivers on one of MRI's key pillars of growth; increasing sales of products and increasing margins.

“We feel we will be attracting stronger brands and better products that people want in Australia and China.. it will allow us to enhance our sales and bring on a stronger supply chain that in time will bring better deals”

David Vinson, Chairman, My Rewards International

My Rewards International

My Rewards helps businesses reward, recognise, and engage their employees, create customer loyalty and engagement for business, offer rewards and benefits for club and organisation members, and advertise your brand to our engaged community.

My Rewards has been in the business of providing customised solutions for employee and consumer rewards for over 25 years. My Rewards pride themselves on helping businesses build engaging, enduring, and meaningful relationships with customers and employees. By connecting more than 5.8 million members with thousands of suppliers, My Rewards help businesses get amazing deals and great perks on products, services, and experiences.

Read the Conversation:

Casey Porters:

 "Hi everyone. My name's Casey and I'm here with David Vinson, the Executive Chairman of My Rewards International. My Rewards is the ASX ticket code (MRI). Thanks for joining us, David.”

David Vinson: 

“A pleasure.”

Casey Porters:

“I think it's a really good time to have you on the podcast here with us. You've recently signed an agreement with Alibaba, one of the largest e-commerce brands in the world. For anyone who isn't aware, David, do you mind giving us a bit of an introduction and background to who Alibaba is and what the nature of the relationship?”

David Vinson:

“Yeah. Excellent. Thank you, Casey. Look, we're very excited about this agreement that we've formed in partnership with Tmall Global. So under the Alibaba Banner, we are dealing with the Tmall Global side of the business, which allows suppliers and brands outside China to sell into China via the Tmall global e-commerce platform.

So from that point of view, what Tmall Global were looking for from the Australian side as a partner, as is My Rewards that can curate a number of different suppliers and brands and make it very easy for Australian and New Zealand suppliers to onboard and sell their products into China via the Tmall Global platform.

And because of our long established history with thousands of suppliers and hundreds of thousands of products, plus the tech that we have, which will be integrating into the Tmall Global platform. We provided a very good synergy and good opportunity for Tmall to partner with us to be able to deliver multiple brands and suppliers into the Chinese market.”

Casey Porters: 

“Yeah, great. I think there are quite a few synergies between My Reward's existing business having already provided a rewards and loyalty platform that allows consumers and members to access discounts from key suppliers. So the fact that you already have the tech-backing there really makes this a very synergistic relationship between the two of you.”

David Vinson: 

“Yeah, absolutely. And I think what's really positive about this is that it will allow us to enhance our sales through our platform, it'll also allow us to bring on even stronger supply chain suppliers that we hope in time offer even better deals, which means our Australian members will also benefit by having even more beneficial pricing. So between what we would sell in Australia and then opening up the Chinese market, we feel we'll be attracting, as I said, stronger brands and more products that are really what people want, not only, not only here, but also in China.” 

Casey Porters: 

“Yeah, great. And I think something that would be worth highlighting is how the market will be able to see the flow on effects and the fruits of this relationship as part of My Reward's growth strategy. Could you just delve into that a little bit more?”

David Vinson:

“Yeah, Casey, look, what this arrangement does for us is really deliver on one of our key pillars that we've been talking about since the listing, and that is to increase our sales of products, but also increase the sales with a margin. So traditionally we've been selling a lot of high volume of gift cards that have a margin that we often have to give away some of that margin in order to be competitive. What this arrangement does for us is allow us to access products and sales that will deliver higher margin. So we expect two things.
One is it'll allow us to offer the Australian members better pricing, which will make it more attractive to transact on our platforms here in Australia. But not only that, we will participate in the sales into China via the Tmall global platform. And that will also in time increase not only revenues, but the margin that we'll be gaining on those sales will then increase our overall gross margin on sales.”

Casey Porters: 

“Yeah. Great. And this agreement also allows you to continue progressing on one of your other key tenants of your growth strategy, which is to expand internationally. Could you just delve, delve into and just detail some of the relationships, existing relationships that you have with key corporates and how the relationship with Alibaba fits into that?”

David Vinson: 

“Yeah, certainly. Look, with some of the announcements we've made in the past. We've been growing in the Asian market. For example, Wyndham Destinations, which is one of our clients, one of the largest timeshare groups in the world. We are now operating and expanding the rewards program for Wyndham in the Asian market. Secondly, we announced recently the launch of the Ria Financial program in Malaysia with beta testing. So that's a contract where Ria, which is one of the largest money transfer companies in the world, will be expanding their reward program into multiple countries, but certainly focusing outside Australia, into Asia. So from our perspective, the growth in the Asian market makes a lot of sense. And this opportunity with Tmall Global really expands on that and leverages our current tech.”

Casey Porters:

“Yeah, great. And congratulations again on being able to secure an agreement with a partner such as Tmall and Alibaba. Thanks for joining us, David.”

David Vinson:

“No pleasure, Casey. And look forward to talking to you more in the future.”

Casey Porters:

“For anyone who'd like to learn more about my awards or the agreement with Alibaba and Tmall, feel free to click on the link in the description or contact any one of our advisors.”