Merchant FAQ's

What is Scout?

Scout is a totally new way for consumers to bid and buy items from their favourite retailers (You!), with the Scout button right on your catalog pages we drive interest from customers that might pass them by, generating a new level of click through and improving sales numbers easily and quickly.

Our goal is to sell the stock you have more efficiently and to allow a higher conversion of views into sales, who doesn’t like to make an offer on something they might like?  This increases conversion and the winning rather than buying adds value to the customer experience.

Scout sits in the space between full price and sale price allowing closer to full price sales more of the time than a traditional sale and allowing dynamic pricing based on consumer demand and stock availability right down to a SKU level including variants like size and colour.

With customers winning the deal they also value the purchase more, reducing returns and building loyalty with the enhanced customer experience Scout provides.

The 48 hour voucher validity means that the fear of missing out encourages a swift purchase improving sales volume and allowing targeted sales of stock.

How does Scout work?

Customers make a bid on the items they love from their preferred and trusted retailers right on the product page, we gather the offers together and allocate stock to the highest bidders first, improving margin for the merchant and effectively clearing stock, all automatically based on the criteria you set.

You are always in full control of the products that you want to Scout and we do all the rest for you based on the preferences we set up to your requirements during the onboarding process.

We notify the winners if they have been successful, we send them a one-time voucher to buy the item they bid on (its not valid on any other product) from the chosen merchant, at the price they offered they just enter the discount code at the checkout like normal, they can add other items and simply use the voucher code to get the discount on the product they won through Scout.

The voucher is keyed to their email address registered with the merchant to both generate loyalty, and also prevent automated and multiple bids.

The voucher is only valid for the actual SKU they bid (including variants) on and only with their chosen supplier, all Scout does is to enable the deal, you own the customer relationship at all times.

How do consumers get a better chance of winning?

Scout allocates stock to the highest bidders the quickest so the best way for them to win and faster is for them to offer what they think is their highest bid, this will mean that they get the stock before others as there could be a limited amount.

This fear of missing out drives demand and increases retailer margins, and sells stock faster.

Once they have made a bid, they can offer more to increase the chances of winning, they just go back to the product page again and make another bid, we will automatically delete any lower previous offer.

If they then make a lower offer though we will always maintain the highest bid.

Scout allows prices to be automatically allocated based on real time demand and down to a SKU and varient level meaning different colours and sizes can be sold at differing prices dependant on the demand and effectively clearing difficult to sell product and end of lines.

Is Scout an auction?

Kind of yes, we allocate the stock that you have chosen to be Scouted to the highest bids in order of amount so the higher the customer bid the better chance there is of winning, every night we run an auction to sell to the highest bidders and gradually lower the minimum price that they need to enter the auction one day at a time to ensure that we sell at the highest price first, maximising margin for the merchant.

We set up these daily reduction of minimum level with you during the onboarding process, we can change this at any time as you get more used to the way that Scout works for you, just drop us an email and we can change this on a store basis for no charge.

How long does the consumer have to use the voucher?

48 Hours from the time it is issued; by setting a time limit we can offer product that doesn’t get redeemed back for sale again, and also encourages the use of the voucher to avoid missing out.

Do consumers have to use the voucher?

We cant make them, but as they have won the deal rather than just buying an item the desire to complete is higher and the fear of missing out drives them to be more motivated to purchase the item.

How long does it take for a consumer to be notified of a win?

The more they bid the faster they will win; we allocate the highest bidders first then every day after we allocate winners who have offered gradually lower amounts until the stock is all gone. We recommend 5-day promotions so that the customers don’t have too long to wait, this is set up during onboarding on a per store basis.

Are customers buying from Scout or the merchant?

Consumers are buying from the retailers they already love and trust, Scout is just helping them to do the deal with their preferred retailer but they make the purchase directly so their consumer rights are not affected and the relationship between the merchant and the consumer is maintained, the only information that Scout has on the consumer is their email address to allow us to communicate the bids and to send the voucher code to the winners, we don’t use the email for any other purpose.

What about returns?

We hope that consumers love the items that they win through Scout but if there is an issue and they have to return an item, they go through the usual process with the retailers returns policy. 

Scout doesn’t manage the returns process, and the contract will always remain with the selling retailer.

Scout reduces returns by the consumer valuing the item more with the bidding / winning process, customers are more invested in the product than in a normal sales process and so are less likely to return items bought via Scout.

How do customers tell if they can Scout an item?

When the merchant adds an item to be Scouted we automatically add a Scout ‘S’ button on the product image on the merchant catalogue page and Scout bidding slider on the product page allowing customers to know which items can be Scouted easily.

This lets them know they can Scout this item and drives click through to the product page and the Scout interface meaning they never have to leave the product page.

What rules does Scout have?

We only allow certain bids, usually this is down to 50 % off the full price but this is set by the merchant and entered by Scout during the on boarding process, we want to help genuine buyers get a great deal but not encourage lots of low bids.

The one time voucher we send can only be redeemed at the retailer the offer was made to, it can’t be used by anyone else as it is keyed to the customers registered email address for that retailer and only for the SKU for the item.

Consumers can place a higher bid at any time and their previous bid will be cancelled, if they bid less then the highest bid will still stand.

The voucher we send is for the specific product SKU and variant that has been bid on so the actual size and colour selected for example, it cant be used on anything else so different sizes and colours may be sold at different prices.