We all love cashbacks, don’t we? Spending a little extra to get that ‘X’ percentage of cashback always feels like we have saved a ton. Cashbacks really kicked into the picture when digital payments raged in India after demonetisation. Paytm which actually brought the cashback scene way before, began to benefit it only after demonetisation. Here is a thing with cashback – the more you spend or transact, the more cashback you earn. That’s how it is and always has been. However, we are not talking about Paytm today. Rather we dig into its biggest competitor – Mobikwik which, earlier this year, introduced ‘Super Cash’, – claimed as a much better benefit to users than normal cashbacks. However, what is the real picture? Well, let’s break it down.
What is Mobikwik Super Cash?
Before we hit the comparisons, let’s first drill down what Super Cash is? Mobikwik calls it bigger and better than usual cash. In reality, Super Cash is a cashback you earn every time you make a transaction (minimum Rs 100) and it can be used irrespective of other sources of funds or your wallet balance. This is not the complete picture, however. You can only use a certain percentage of Super Cash balance at a time which is 5% for Recharges and Bill Payments and 10% for others. Let’s understand this with an example-
Suppose you have Rs 200 as your Super Cash balance and you decide to buy a pair of shoes from Myntra which costs about Rs 2000. On paying through Mobikwik, you can use 10% of your Super Cash balance, i.e. Rs 20 and pay the remaining balance, i.e. Rs 1980 through some other payment method. Now how will I earn Mobikwik Super Cash, you must wonder? Well, “Each offer/promo code/ coupon code will have an associated amount of SuperCash with it that you will receive. Upon using that offer/code, the respective SuperCash will be credited to your MobiKwik wallet.”
Note, if it was for a recharge or bill payments, you could only use Rs 10 in the above example.
But the tale doesn’t end here. There is a lot more to Super Cash than just simply saving up 10% of the balance every time you transact. First, you can either earn Super Cash or use it in one transaction so using it up and earning more is out of the picture. Second, you can earn Super Cash on a maximum of 3 transactions per day and 40 per month. Third, while most of the merchants require you to spend a minimum of Rs 100, it might be higher for some merchants. For the validity, SuperCash expires 45 days after the end of the calendar month in which you received it.
Super Cash vs Normal Cashback
Mobikwik claims that Super Cash is bigger and better than Normal Cashbacks (I know I have said this quite a few times), however, it doesn’t really benefit if we look at the overall picture. To start with, Super Cash is non-transferable. In other words, you cannot transfer your Super Cash to other Mobikwik user or to any bank account. On the other hand, you can actually covert your normal cashback earnings into money and transfer it your account. Paytm lets you do this. Further, the concept of using a certain percentage of Super Cash in a particular transaction doesn’t really make sense to us while things get even worse if it’s a recharge or bill payments which believe it or not is something we tend to the most with the e-wallets.
As a consumer, you would want to have no restrictions on, at least, the usage of your cashback. Going by the model Mobikwik is currently following, the company only wants you to use the App without any real benefits over its competitors. A similar model is followed by Goibibo with its GoGash+ where users earn Rs 50 everytime a contact completes a booking through Goibibo. But even there, Goibibo lets you use up all the GoCash+ (except Bus Tickets) the next time you book something on the service. Also, you do earn additional GoCash (not GoCash+) whenever you transact irrespective if you use the GoCash+ or not. Now encouraging users to transact through there app is fine, but Super Cash is that packet of lays which is more of a gyp than a snack.