The City of Hyattsville has introduced a new Open Rewards app designed to encourage more shopping at local businesses.
Part of the goal of the program, according to city staff , is to keep Hyattsville’s dollars in Hyattsville, with users having to make purchases at businesses to earn and redeem their rewards: “We hope this will encourage shopping locally during the holiday season and beyond.”
Jeff Ulysse, director of the city’s Community Business and Economic Development, explained that Hyattsville has a number of ongoing initiatives to help local businesses, such as the corridor investment program and the facade improvement program (which provides matching grants to help small businesses and property owners improve the exterior appearances of their storefronts). But the city wanted something that could “move the needle” for small businesses, as well as provide incentives for shoppers. Open Rewards does that, city officials said.
“The rewards app itself is free,” Ulysse explained. “The way it works is you go into an establishment in the city, you make a purchase, and on that purchase you earn percentages in rewards. Those reward dollars you could then leverage in the city again for another purchase.”
App users earn 5% in rewards for every dollar they spend at participating businesses, up to $10 per purchase. Rewards are held in the app for up to three months. Once they download the app, users enter their information, connect a debit card or bank account (optional), add their community and set up notifications.
Ulysse said that because other communities participate in the Open Rewards program, app users need to specify Hyattsville. “After you’ve completed that process, you just set up notifications, and the dashboard for the app populates. You can see all of the participating businesses, small businesses particularly, in the program.”
Hyattsville is home to more than 600 total businesses, and there are more than 400 vendors and businesses participating in the program, Ulysse said. “We wanted to open it up to all of our smaller mom-and-pop businesses that are unique either to the city or participated in city programming,” he noted. “This is an opportunity to increase foot traffic to these businesses during the holiday season and [provide] an extra boost in terms of commerce to support their efforts.”
Available in the App Store and Google Play, the Open Rewards app has been years in the making, according to city staff. City representatives first explored another program called Flave, which is similar to Open Rewards but didn’t do exactly what they had in mind.
“We wanted something that had a direct impact on our small businesses,” Ulysse said. “Then we were introduced to Bluedot, the service provider of the [Open Rewards] platform.”
To make sure the app was perfect for the city, officials reached out to Howard County, which is a participating jurisdiction, to gather feedback on their experience and the impact of the program.
“We were essentially sold,” Ulysse said. “It’s no cost to the businesses, but it also keeps our dollars here in Hyattsville, and that’s really what we care about.”