The Vendor Portal is a tool provided by Easypromos for businesses, physical stores, and establishments to manage the promotional mechanics they organize for their customers and consumers. Specifically, the Vendor Portal provides two distinct tools according to their use or objective:

1. Tool for redeeming prizes: Allows verifying the prizes distributed to users through an online promotion, which users must redeem physically at a point of sale.
2. Tool for registering purchases through QR code scanning: After making a purchase at the point of sale, the vendor shows the customer a QR code, which the customer must scan with their mobile device. Upon scanning it, the customer will access an online promotion where they can participate in a promotional mechanic, such as a prize wheel, a game, or a simple draw with registration.

The Vendor Portal is in the format of a web page, accessible via a URL, and has been optimized for use on any device with an Internet connection. It does not require the installation of any app.

Thus, the Vendor Portal allows points of sale to carry out promotional mechanics with their customers and consumers in a simple, enjoyable, and secure way.

In this tutorial, we explain how the Vendor Portal works, its utilities, and all the options for configuring it.

These are the contents of the tutorial:

1. Introduction

2. How the Vendor Portal Works

3. Vendor Portal Configuration

   • 3.1. Creating Points of Sale

   • 3.2. Obtaining the Vendor Portal Access URL

   • 3.3. Customization Options

4. Usage Statistics of the Vendor Portal

   • 4.1. Dynamic QR Code Scanning

   • 4.2. Prize Validations

1. Introduction

Incentivizing visits to physical stores is one of the main challenges for any brand aiming to increase its sales. In this scenario, online promotions become one of the most effective strategies to attract customers to the point of sale. The excuse: visiting the store to redeem a prize they have obtained after participating in an online promotion or, conversely, having the opportunity to participate in an online promotion (Prize Wheel, giveaway, game) after registering a purchase in a physical establishment. In both cases, the prize, gift, or discount will act as an incentive to attract users to the point of sale.

The Vendor Portal is the tool provided by Easypromos for businesses, physical stores, and establishments to manage promotional mechanics for their customers and consumers in a secure, reliable, and transparent manner.

Below, we explain the two use cases of the Vendor Portal.

1.1. Tool for Prize Redemption

Use Case

The brand organizes an online promotion where users can win a prize, whether it's a gift, a promotional coupon, or a discount. To redeem the prize, the user must go to the physical store, shop, or establishment and show the redemption screen to the vendor, which includes information about the prize they have won.

Utility of the Vendor Portal

It allows verifying the prizes that have been distributed to users through the online promotion. Each point of sale must access the Vendor Portal with its access password. The user will arrive at the establishment and show the redemption screen of the prize won in the promotion to the vendor, who can verify the prize in the Portal by either entering the unique reference of the prize or scanning the QR code displayed on the redemption screen. The Portal will indicate to the vendor if the prize is valid, verifying that it has not been redeemed before.

More information: Check how to create redeemable prizes in the point of sale.

1.2. Tool for Registering Purchases via QR Code Scanning

Use Case

After making a purchase at the point of sale, the vendor shows the customer a QR code that the customer must scan with their mobile phone. By scanning it, the customer will access an online promotion where they can participate in a promotional mechanic, whether it's a Prize Wheel, a game, or a simple giveaway with registration.

Utility of the Vendor Portal

The Vendor Portal incorporates the tool to generate the QR code that the vendor must show to the customer or consumer after making the purchase. For security purposes and to prevent fraud, the QR code is automatically regenerated after scanning, ensuring that the QR codes are unique and users cannot share them.

2. How the Vendor Portal Works

Below, we show in the following video how the Vendor Portal works from the perspective of businesses and physical establishments that will use it to manage the promotions they organize for their customers.

3. Vendor Portal Configuration

Below, we describe all the steps to enable the Vendor Portal and all the available configuration and customization options.

3.1. Creating Points of Sale

The next step is to create Points of Sale, which are the physical points of sale (stores, kiosks, etc.) that users will visit, either to redeem a prize they have won in an online promotion or to register a physical purchase and thus participate in a promotional mechanism.

For each point of sale, it is necessary to define a name, a password to access the Vendor Portal, and a 4-digit PIN, which serves as an additional security measure during the prize redemption process.

Note: You must create at least one point of sale.

To get started, you will need to access the Editor > Prizes > Points of Sale section, which is the section where you can create and manage the different points of sale that will have access to the Vendor Portal.

There are two ways to create the points of sale:

1. Importing Points of Sale from a File: The editor includes a tool to upload the points of sale by importing them from a file. This way, you can list the points of sale in a CSV file or in a text file and then import them all at once with a simple copy/paste, and the system will generate them automatically.

Check out this tutorial to see how you should work with the file and prepare it for importing the file with the list of all the points of sale.  

2. Manually Adding the Points of sale: If you prefer, you can add each point of sale manually.

To do this, you just need to click on the "Create point of sale" button. Then, a window will open where you can configure the following data:

• Name of the point of sale.
• Password to access the Vendor Portal: This is the password that allows the point of sale to identify itself and access the Vendor Portal.

After creating the point of sale, the system will also automatically generate the security PIN, a 4-digit value that the staff at the point of sale will provide to users to redeem the prize from their devices. In this way, when visiting the point of sale, the user will need to enter the security PIN provided by the store on the redemption screen. Each point of sale has its own security PIN, allowing you to identify at which point of sale each prize has been redeemed.

You can create as many points of sale as you need, so you can create a different point of sale for each store/local/physical establishment where users can go to redeem the prize or register a purchase to participate in an online promotion.

3.2. Vendor Portal Access URL

Once you have created all the points of sale, the system will have automatically generated the access URL to the Vendor Portal. This URL should be provided to all points of sale so that they can use the tools of the Vendor Portal and manage their promotions. Upon accessing, each point of sale must identify itself with its access password.

To obtain the URL of the Vendor Portal, you must click on the "Vendor Portal" tab, and the URL is the one that appears at the top of the page:

3.3. Customization Options

Finally, the last step is to customize the design of the Vendor Portal with the following available options:

• Logo: The recommended size is 200x200px.
• Color: It is the color that will be used for the buttons that appear on the Portal.
• Introduction message: This text will appear at the top of the page.
• Help text: Use it to suggest a support contact or usage instructions to the sales point user.
• Custom message after redeeming a prize [in case of Prize Redemption]: This text will appear on the screen after redeeming a prize.

In addition, you will find the following available options:

• Enable validation of codes distributed offline: This option will also allow you to check and verify the codes that you have distributed offline and that users present at the point of sale, in order to ensure that the prize is valid before it can be redeemed.
• Enable review of coupon details before redemption: This option allows you to enable a page that appears just before validating the prize, showing the information of the user who has won the coupon as well as the details of the prize itself. This option is useful for the person at the point of sale to verify the coupon and user details before validating and redeeming the prize.

• Hide the option that allows points of sale to undo the code validation action: This option allows the person in charge at the point of sale to undo the action after redeeming a code and mark the code as unused again.
• Allow adding notes to a redeemed prize: This option allows the person in charge at the point of sale to add an internal note to a redeemed prize. Use this "Notes" field to add internal comments about the redemption of a prize (example: product stock issues, product change, etc.).

4. Vendor Portal Usage Statistics

Once the promotion is finished, you can check the Vendor Portal Usage Statistics to evaluate the campaign's results. Specifically, you can obtain the following statistics based on the usage of the Vendor Portal:

• Dynamic QR Code Scanning Statistics

• Redeemed Prize Validation Statistics

4.1. Dynamic QR Code Scanning

You can check the statistics of QR code scans and see where they have been performed. You can view this data from three different points:

1. From the Users list, where you have the "Requirements" tool, where you can see the QR scans performed at each sales point:

2. From the Promotion Statistics section. You will find the "QR Scans" section, which allows you to consult detailed information about the QR codes scanned by sales point. The information you can obtain includes:

• Day-to-Day Scans.
• Scans of the last 7 days, per hour.
• Total scans per point of sale.

4.2. Prize Validations

You can check the statistics of the validations performed and see where they have been carried out. You can view this data from three different points:

1. From the Users list, where you have the "Prize Redemption" tool, which allows you to easily review the prizes that have been redeemed, as well as export the list of redeemed prizes to an Excel/CSV file.

Additionally, you can check the prizes redeemed by a user by opening the individual participation of each participant. If the prize has been redeemed, the date and time of redemption and the point of sale will be indicated:

If the prize has not yet been redeemed, the "redemption link" is available, which opens the redemption screen with specific information about the prize the user won. This link can be useful to assist the user in the redemption process, if necessary.

2. From the Promotion Statistics section. You will find the "Prize Redemption" section, which allows you to consult detailed information about the prizes redeemed in the promotion in the form of graphs. The information you can obtain includes:

• Prize Validation Ratio: Indicates how many prizes have been redeemed compared to the prizes given. The percentage is indicated, and it is available for both the total number of prizes and by prize type.
• Redemption Statistics by Prize Type:
  • Daily evolution.
  • By day of the week.
  • By time of day.
  • Total.
• Redemption Statistics by Point of Sale:
  • Total.
  • Daily evolution.
  • Redemption statistics by System 1 (Vendor Portal) vs. System 2 (Mobile).

3. From the Vendor Portal

From the Vendor Portal itself, it is also possible to check the validations of prizes carried out. To do this, upon accessing the Vendor Portal via the URL and after logging in with the access password, the person at the point of sale can click on the "Validations" link:

When you click, a list of the latest validations will open, where you can see the participant's name, the name of the prize, the promotional code, as well as the date on which the validation was made.