A Browser Extension to Optimise Credit Card Rewards

Project Goal

Credit cards are one of the most popular ways to make payments for online purchases. Almost every eCommerce store provides credit card-specific offers and reward points, but most users don’t know which card can fetch the maximum savings.

Though it was a problem from the user’s perspective as they fail to avail savings and reward points, we met a client who found an opportunity in it. Our client already had a chrome extension with the ability to recommend credit cards with while shopping online.

The current extension was not able to meet to the requirements thus client wanted us to add some functionalities and create a same extension for Safari browser. We need to add all popular credit cards to the selection while enabling users to benefit from it without sharing credit cards or personal information.

Solution

After conducting initial sessions to understand the requirements, we started making the changes and adding new functionalities to the Client extension. Apart from extending the current functionalities of this Chrome extension, we need to build it as a safari extension too.

We decided to fetch the data related to rewards by adding the data for each online store in the Firebase. Below are some of the solutions we provided during the project to satisfy the exact requirements.

There are numerous banks and financial institutions that offer credit cards. So, the first thing we need to ensure is adding all popular credit cards to the extension so that users can find the credit cards they use after installing the chrome extension to their browser. The cards we added initially are based on the usage stats and the client’s recommendations.

Once the user installs the extension and shops products using any popular online store, he can get the recommendation for using the most suitable card on the payment page. The extension could fetch and analyze the promotions and rewards to suggest the card that can yield maximum reward points or savings for the users.

The recommendations were not limited to the payment page. The user can check the most suitable cards for purchase on any online store moment he visits the product page on that store. The extension will also show the exact savings or points that the user will earn using a specific card.

The client has a specific requirement to add a loyalty wallet for Rakuten in his existing extension. We added a secondary trigger to make this wallet functional by displaying the deals and promotions available from Rakuten. The idea was to test the functionality with the single merchant for now and add more merchants slowly and gradually.

Credit cards and financial information are often subject to hacks and other cyber threats. Asking users to fill in card details or financial information is not wise in the current eCommerce scenario.

Taking it into consideration, we added the images of cards, and users only need to choose relevant images to start receiving the recommendations from our chrome extension.

Apart from displaying the best credit cards for each shopping portal irrespective of the user’s wallet, we also provided an option to apply for them. If the user is not using any specific card, he can apply for it with just a click using our custom extension.

We tweaked the previous logic where the extension only shows the cards that the user chooses in their wallet so that he can get a recommendation for the best credit cards for online shopping.

Final Words

These were some features of our custom chrome extension for online shoppers. Our client was delighted with the expertise of our team. We assisted him in every step from inception to deployment. Even his users loved this extension as it never lets them miss savings and reward points just because they are unaware of the promotions.

We are happy that this extension has added value to our client’s business and look forward to turning more such ideas into reality. If similar ideas are brewing in your mind, you can contact our chrome development team today. We will guide and assist you turn your idea into a fully functional browser extension.