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Love coding and design? Flexible yet structured? Do you love building great technical products, from the nitty-gritty details to the big picture? In that case, this might be something for you.

We're looking for a frontend developer who wants to contribute to democratizing savings and promoting sustainable investments. Together with our competent tech and design team, you will focus on creating a great end-user experience.

In order to be successful in this role, we think that you:

Work remotely or from our HQ in Stockholm, Sweden.

Frontend Developer

Frontend developer

Love coding? Flexible yet structured? Do you love building great technical products, from the nitty-gritty details to the big picture? In that case, this might be something for you.

We're looking for a backend developer who wants to contribute to democratizing savings and promoting sustainable investments. Together with our competent tech and design team, you will focus on creating a great user experience.

In order to be successful in this role we think that you:

Work remote or from our HQ in Stockholm, Sweden.

Backend Developer

Backend developer

Are you a product person? A person who loves all aspects of building great products, from the nitty gritty details to the big picture of a successful business case? In that case this might be something for you.

You will be focusing on creating a great user experience and work tight with our tech and design team. Knowing what the end-users want and creating new standards for what to expect in our industry, that’s your mission!

In order to be successful in this role we think that you have:

Product Lead

Contact

Visiting address

API Documentation

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The world of finance is a mystery to many, and the 

German Institute for Service Quality (DISQ)

 is on a mission to change that. They recently analyzed 261 financial institutions to provide consumers with guidance on useful products that are new to the market. After conducting independent competition analyses and customer surveys, the institute announced hi!stocks, the social trading app 

we have developed together with comdirect

By utilizing over 2,000 trained testers and sophisticated scientific methods, the DISQ team of sociologists, economists, and psychologists work to provide consumers with important clues and guidance for their purchasing decisions. For this particular study, DISQ joined forces with financial experts Carola Ferstl, a renowned business journalist, and Prof. Dr. Sven Christiansen, a Managing Director of the Institute for Quantitative Financial Analysis.

“Not only are we thrilled that hi!stocks is recognized as an award recipient, but we are also thankful to DISQ for their meticulous efforts and work on behalf of the German consumer. Their research gave us valuable information for our own quality management, and we can’t wait to use this experience as a launchpad to reach new heights with hi!stocks,” says Max, Country Manager of Germany for StockRepublic.

The award serves as a testament to the app’s innovative strength and ability to provide exceptional customer benefits and the commitment to excellence and dedication from the joint team of comdirect and StockRepublic. 

hi!stocks: Germany’s Best Finance Product of 2023

Germany’s Best Finance Product of 2023

Thirty-five companies are selected to showcase their latest financial services technologies via demos at the event in London, March 14-15, 2023.

, one of the premier fintech conferences in the world, is right around the corner. The carefully curated and fast-paced event is filled with insightful speakers, innovation, and product demos. This year, 

 our Whitelabel (app) product in front of thousands of attendees across the fintech industry, including important platform players, financial institutions, and regulators.

“FinovateEurope has an unparalleled range of perspectives from across the fintech ecosystem, and we are delighted to share ours to help cut to the core of innovation. During the demo, our team will showcase the true power of an active and engaged customer and present the audience with a social trading app that seamlessly allows users to share their success stories, benchmarks, and guidance. While we are already trusted by reputable companies like ComDirect, Commerzbank, Placera, and Avanza, we are really looking forward to sharing a concept with this much potential with a broader audience,” says Fabian Grapengiesser, CEO at StockRepublic.

The two-day conference, which takes place at Intercontinental 02 in London, gives attendees access to cutting-edge fintech and incredible keynote speakers. The event, which will include participants from more than 300 of the top financial institutions in the world, is an opportunity to hear from industry experts who can help you plan for a digital future centered around innovation.

“Finovate is all about navigating change through discovery of new technologies and opportunities,” said Greg Palmer, VP and Host of Finovate. “We’re delighted to have StockRepublic joining us in London. Their technology can give users a powerful edge when it comes to engaging a new generation of investors, and it’s sure to resonate with our audience.”

FinovateEurope is an opportunity for a growing global professional crowd to come together to drive the adoption of new technologies, enhance customer experiences, and fuel immediate and future revenue growth. StockRepublic is happy to contribute to the cause and looks forward to demoing our Whitelabel product in London in March.

StockRepublic Selected to Demo at FinovateEurope along with other Industry Trailblazers 

StockRepublic Selected to Demo at FinovateEurope

As we get ready to ring the final bell of 2022, it’s time to reflect on another exciting year and some of our major milestones. 🎉

, making it easier to learn how our different APIs work while providing a sandbox environment for developers to play around in. In addition, our team began productizing our Social Trading API, allowing banks and brokers to embed social trading features and modules in existing applications.

 in collaboration with comdirect to much fanfare. The new investment community caters to the rapidly growing digital-first audience, setting a new industry standard for user experiences and social trading. You can read our 

Throughout the year, we took several strategic steps towards establishing ourselves in the ever-important German market, including 

 with Access Germany and hired our first local Country Manager there.

As a scaleup, we are still growing quickly. It includes exploring the enticing Indian market in partnership with Business Sweden, strengthening the team with key roles like Head of Sales and UI/UX Lead, and signing three new customers in three different markets. One of them, Placera, 

went live with their new StockRepublic-powered solution yesterday

The stock market may have been in a volatile downtrend this year, but the interest in StockRepublic is stronger than ever, with exceeded sales goals for 2022 as proof. With the rise of retail investors, banks and brokers face stiff competition from Neobrokers and WealthTech innovators as they battle it out to earn the business of the next generation of traders. As they all push to make passive customers more profitable, social trading has already proven to be essential to investors.

While you may not find any trading tips under the tree this year, we hope your holidays will be filled with joy, love, and warmth.  

Fabian Grapengiesser, CEO and Co-Founder of StockRepublic

Season’s Greetings from StockRepublic & a Snowy Stockholm

, one of Sweden's largest financial sites and a wholly owned subsidiary of Avanza, with approximately 1,000,000 visitors per week, has partnered with us at StockRepublic to upgrade their popular investment forum with new-generation social trading tooling.

The Placera forum has served a key function for the company for many years but was quietly deactivated at the end of 2021 because the technology powering it had slowly become outdated. However, the forum has always been very popular, generating substantial traffic and attracting important visitors. Therefore, it was ideally not something that they wanted to be without.

Placera reached out to us on StockRepublic, wanting to rebuild their forum from scratch using modern technology that supports identified users and moderation to prevent illicit activities. The new solution also needed to fit seamlessly into the Placera and Avanza platforms as a whole.

Using our Social Trading API, we created a scalable and customized solution based on their needs. 

 is integrated with BankID as an extra identification layer, has state-of-the-art moderation tooling, and dually integrates with the Avanza trading platform.

The end-users can now tag, talk about, and follow all of the financial instruments available on the Avanza trading platform. The latest discussion on the Placera forum then effortlessly flows back into the Avanza trading platform, next to the bespoken financial instrument.

The new Placera Forum and the Avanza trading platform can independently exist while remaining connected and offering strong security layers. With this independence, Avanza can utilize the Placera Forum to create content, gain users, regardless of where those people have their bank account, and build relationships with potential new customers. This intersection of the Placera Forum and Avanza creates a customer acquisition channel for the company driven by user-generated content from real investors.

The Placera Forum is now Powered by StockRepublic

We always have the social traders in mind when we look to improve the user experience and increase meaningful engagement in our customers' apps. That is why we recently decided to alter the feed experience in an effort to maximize community involvement around trades.

Before, when you made a trade, it became a post in the feed of other social traders.

Now, you will see a similar post but in a slicker design and with an actionable link allowing you to access real-time price and trade details. We have made this update to encourage more people to understand the context of why a trade was made and to give them a shortcut to taking action.

We asked Dana Assanova, our UI/UX Lead, on why the design update was made:

– We saw users taking a detour to make trades when inspired by something they saw from the feed and wanted to simplify the path to action. So when re-designing, we tried not to change the design too much for the users' perception, just a minimal nudge to alter their focus. 

The recent design update pinpoints the fact that our white-label apps are always in tune with the latest data insights, market needs, and industry trends. Dana and her team will continue to optimize the experience in the months ahead and would love to hear from you if you have feedback that could improve the user experience.

White-label design update: Quicker from Trade Post to Action

, a program that supports Hamburg startups and provides grants for innovative FinTech companies, has awarded StockRepublic 200,000€ funding to help fuel our growth and strengthen our position in Germany.

StockRepublic was chosen for the grant based on the following criteria:

The granted funds of up to 200,000€ will be spent on marketing efforts to strengthen our position and make our two brands StockRepublic and 

, even more prominent on the German market. The program also gives us access to one of the largest startup networks in Germany, consultancy feedback on our business model, and ongoing pitch training

“Thanks to InnoFinTech, we will be able to expand our marketing efforts to penetrate the market further and build on the growing audience of customers and clients.” – Max Knopp, Country Manager Germany.

It is vital for the company and shows how previous strategic steps have strengthened StockRepublic’s position in Germany. From the 

 – the InnoFinTech funding is another major milestone.

StockRepublic Fuels Growth With InnoFintech Funding

In an important effort to build a closer relationship with our German customers and continue to conquer the second-biggest FinTech market in Europe, we are now setting up a legal entity in Germany. This has been a long time coming, as StockRepublic has taken many steps to strengthen its foothold in the country.

The process has included adding a Country Manager position, participating in the 

, and establishing a thriving partnership with Commerzbank’s Comdirect, resulting in the investment community; 

But why Germany? Our Country Manager, Max, breaks down the details.  

– First off, there are great talents, a combination of highly educated individuals, and a driven workforce. Second, the Neobanking segment, one of our main target groups, is poised to show a revenue growth of close to 53% in 2023. Third, the FinTech market is expected to continue to grow in the country, and with the improved digital infrastructure, we believe that the best is yet to come for the region as a whole. That certainly includes Hamburg, where we’ll have our base.

The legal entity is the next natural building block for StockRepublic and something that is being added to an already strong foundation. With this move, we can attract and hire top German talent, improve our expertise in certain areas, and streamline our operations.

We are now more ready than ever to provide excellent social trading products for the people of Germany.

Growth in Germany Leads to new Legal Entity

Here at StockRepublic, we have some unique insights from 

; the social network specifically made for comdirect and their customers. Last week we pulled some data to showcase the correlation between DAX movements and engagement rates for social trading.

The data is pulled from trading days with a downward DAX movement of at least 2% since the hi!stocks app went live (May 11) until Nov 2. Therefore, the total sample size includes a total of eight different trading days during this period.

On July 5, for example, the DAX index dropped by -2.91% and was from that perspective one of the worst trading days for the hi!stocks community. On the back of that, we could see the following increases in engagement (vs. average) as a result:

Compared to average numbers, and therefore, July 5 actually proved to be one of the best 

 trading days for hi!stocks. Furthermore, the average social engagement of the eight trading days from the sample still paints a clear picture of the correlation between DAX index performance and social engagement:

Another fun fact – when we see a DAX movement of -2% or more, the hi!stocks app attracts 10% more visitors than on average.

 People turn to their community in times of uncertainty, and we are happy to provide one.

When the DAX Goes Down, Social Trading Goes Up

As Johan Hartikainen (Head of Sales) and Max Knopp (Country Manager of Germany) brainstormed ideas for how to reward the most engaging members of the 

The concept aims to celebrate an elite group of community members that have 5-star rankings and high engagement rates within the platform. Whether they send many messages, leave quality comments, or provide insights and information that other users find helpful, what rings true for all of them is that they make the platform and the experience better for others. As such, we now recognize them as hi!stocks heroes.

Our newfound heroes got their "hi!socks" at the end of October and were given a blue tick next to their username (similar to the verified badge you have seen elsewhere). However, that was just a first step – there are grander plans for the hi!stocks heroes' idea. Next, we want to improve the loyalty program and gamify both the overall experience and future rewards. This will likely include the introduction of profile badges, whether it's for your first trade or most popular contribution, in an effort to grow the community of active hi!stocks heroes.

Using hi!socks to celebrate hi!stocks heroes

To make the app more dynamic, we have improved the post-login landing page with an emphasis on social connectivity and improved engagement. Gone are the days of strictly seeing a portfolio overview. With this update, the end-users can access insights, the community, and their portfolio right from the get-go.

The "Portfolio Overview" is now called "My Investments." In this view, we have curated the end users' favorite interaction points in three key tabs, Overview, Holdings, and Transactions, to give quick access and a better overview of everything around their investments.

As a result, 30 days past the change in the 

, we could see the 1st-week retention increase with 15% and the users with connected bank accounts growing by 17%. 

It’s easy to say that social interaction counts.

Design Updates in our Whitelabel App

Design updates in our whitelabel app

We are delighted to join a handful of other Swedish scaleups in this 

, and look forward to taking advantage of market-specific insights and company-specific meetings to further fuel our ambitious goals for the German market. 

With this program, we will be able to develop a deeper understanding of the opportunities available to us in the country, and gain insights from established local experts across a broad range of related fields. We will start the program, which was initiated by the Swedish-German Chamber of Commerce, with an acceleration bootcamp in Germany at the end of August.

, an organization that is dedicated to accelerating promising tech scaleups like ours, and can’t wait to make the most of this opportunity. With their knowledge, network, and tools, we now have a unique opportunity to succeed in Germany, and we are ready to take full advantage of it.

StockRepublic selected for the Access Germany Program!

It’s officially halftime for 2022, and we are excited for the summer here at StockRepublic. Midsummer, an immensely popular Swedish celebration of the summer solstice, has come and gone. However, the memories of eating pickled herring, drinking snaps, and singing traditional songs with friends and family will live on.

So far, it has been yet another whirlwind year, and we have used our newsletters to tackle 

FinTech investments reaching all-time highs

. It is not until you reflect on the time that has passed that you genuinely understand how much has happened and how quickly time flies. 

While we are seeing continued volatility in the stock market and cryptocurrencies and carefully navigating a bear market and potential crypto winter, we are as excited as ever about the immediate future of StockRepublic. We are growing and launching new pilot programs in influential markets like Brazil and USA. The team is also working hard behind the scenes to continue to provide our customers with world-class community insights and other relevant metrics that will help them with benchmarking and serve as investment inspiration. Our commitment to leading the way for the social trading revolution remains rocksteady, and I want to thank you for being a part of our growing community and efforts.

I wish you a great summer and smooth sailing in the stock market.

Summer, solstice, snaps, and the future of StockRepublic

In collaboration with comdirect, we are excited to launch a new investment community, called 

. In catering to the rapidly growing digital-first audience, we are setting a new standard for the user experience and social trading.

Now, the customers of comdirect can enjoy access to an authentic, fully anonymized, and engaged investment community where they can interact and learn from each other. In the community, the investors can share their portfolios, benchmark themselves, and communicate in real-time.

hi!stocks is live! 🎉

histocks is live!

We are excited to announce that we have a new and improved Explore view. Now, you can see all lists, categories, and entities on the first page, all at once.

The recently released redesign is more spacious and cleaner than its predecessor, and comes with a clear and crisp overall look and feel. It’s a fresh facelift for one of our most popular features, and we hope you like it!

, our Head of Sales, for a free demo and more information. You can also 

The brand new Explore view

The brand new Explore view is for you!

Would you like to get to know how our platform works in an easy-digestible and structured way and learn everything you need to get started with your Social Trading development? We have some great news for you.

 to make it even easier to get an understanding of how our different API works and to give banks and brokerages an introduction to our platform. We hope this emphasizes how easy it is to start developing Social Trading functionality into existing or new applications.

So what are you waiting for, start exploring it today!

The New StockRepublic for Developers Page

StockRepublic for Developers

, fintech startups raised a total of 125 billion dollars in VC funding globally during 2021, which is almost three times more than the year prior. Early-stage funding is also on the rise, especially in Europe and emerging markets. In 2021, almost 1.8k early-stage fintech rounds were completed.

What we’re seeing now is an Open Finance Movement, where consumers are gaining ownership and control over their money, financial data, and investments. What does this mean for your bank, you may ask? The way we see it, banks that understand these changes and are fast to implement innovative solutions for their consumers will have a competitive edge over the ones that don’t. One example of the magnitude of this movement is the recent news that 

JP Morgan is now adding 12 billion dollars to their technology budget

, to add new products and services that will take them into the future.

More banks are now realizing the growing importance of boosting their innovation in the WealthTech sector – a unification of wealth, savings and investments, and technology. This, for example, includes social trading platforms, robo-advising, and digital wallets. In the post-pandemic world where 

the amount of retail investors have skyrocketed

, there’s a lot to gain. In Europe alone, ​​the number of retail investors has doubled since the beginning of last year. One of the many opportunities that WealthTech holds is social trading platforms – open and accessible communities for traders, where users can exchange information and inspiration.

In times of uncertainty and fluctuating markets, we’re seeing an even greater need for proactive communication from banks and brokers. How do you inform your customers about important events relating to their portfolio? If you’re asking me, the bank should know what's important for their customers – and make them aware of it instantly. This is something we've been working on a lot recently, and it turns out it’s a really good thing – for example when Netflix recently dropped 20 percent in just a few hours. Since I own stocks in Netflix, I instantly received a notification about it, and it made me want to share community insights about what people are saying and doing about Netflix right now.

You want to keep taking part of our market outlook, fintech trends and the latest developments of our platform? 

Fintech investments have reached an all-time-high during 2021 🚀

Fintech investments have reached an all-time-high during 2021

At StockRepublic, we’ve started the new year with speed. With four new colleagues joining in January and a new product line for backend API solutions, we are more than ready to take on the new year! 🚀

Sustainable investments and crypto assets are on the rise. In 2022, we will focus on further developing our climate impact features, help users invest in crypto in an easy and accessible way, and build communities for social trading. Inspired by the community strategist Sara Wilson, we believe that 

 have found its way into the Fintech sector, and that investors want to gather in smaller communities around shared investment interests.

  Social Trading in 2022: Sustainability, crypto and digital campfires

  Social Trading in 2022: Sustainability, crypto and digital campfires.

Fintech really is Daniel Ekberger’s thing. He’s worked as both CFO and CEO of several exciting tech companies, and rocks both the financial and the technological side of business. StockRepublic is lucky to have him!

“I was already following StockRepublic’s activities before I joined, and when I got the call from Fabian Grapengiesser it was an easy decision to jump onboard. The product is awesome and the timing in the market is just right.

Though I love what I do, weekends are for family. We love to go boating, regardless of season, and to keep a sharp mind I work at keeping fit. Of course, there are lazy evenings on the couch as well... at the moment, Succession is keeping me hooked with its excellent writing and many dramatic intrigues. 📺”

Would you like to be Daniel’s colleague? We’re on the lookout for new talent to join us on our mission to democratize finance. Apply today:

Welcome to the team Daniel Ekberger

Earlier this summer we announced that we’ve raised new capital with the purpose of accelerating our growth journey and expanding the launch of our social trading platform for banks and partners globally. ﻿ We can now proudly announce that we’re one step closer to our mission to democratize savings and help the next generation of investors make more sustainable choices – thanks to our ongoing project with comdirect – eine Marke der Commerzbank AG. Integration of data is done and users within a closed testing group are now onboard in the internal pilot.

We believe the future of trading is accessible, social and transparent. Which country should we expand to next?

We are live in Germany!

We are live in Germany

The Swedish fintech company StockRepublic is raising new capital to accelerate its growth journey and expand the launch of the social trading platform for banks and partners globally. StockRepublic now receives 2 million EUR, and Commerzbank Group's early-stage investor enters as the lead investor. The investment round is led by the Swedish venture capital fund Uequity and Commerzbank Group's early-stage investor main incubator, together with well-known business angels with a background from, among others, E-Trade, Yubico and Minna Technologies. In total, 2 million EUR is invested.

The investment round is led by the Swedish venture capital fund Uequity and Commerzbank Group's early-stage investor main incubator, together with well-known business angels with a background from, among others, E-Trade, Yubico and Minna Technologies. In total, 2 million EUR is invested.

– Being able to follow other interesting investors, see how climate-friendly their portfolios are, and compare their own portfolio with others is exactly what the new generation of investors are asking for. In addition, they find the guidance needed in order to make well-grounded investment decisions. We are happy to support this paradigm shift through our investment, says Sebastian Scheib, investment manager at main incubator.

Björn Andersen, Head of Brokerage at Commerzbank's comdirect, adds:

– At comdirect, we strongly believe in StockRepublic’s vision of connecting retail trading with social features. It’s an expression of the current zeitgeist among young traders and demonstrates that social trading is going mainstream. Together with StockRepublic, we plan to make stock- and retail trading more accessible, social and transparent, says Björn.

To accelerate this transition and launch StockRepublic widely to the new generation of investors, StockRebublic is currently conducting a proof of concept together with comdirect, which has just under three million customers. This proof of concept will give customers access to all social trading functions and mobile applications, web and desktop.

With its B2B platform, StockRepublic targets banks and other financial players with the ambition of democratizing savings. With the help of real-time investment data, StockRepublic can offer unique access to data that, traditionally, savers are excluded from and get inspiration from star savers from several countries. The platform meets the needs of the new generation of investors, as well as the needs of banks that want to increase the commitment among their customers. StockRepublic can be easily implemented and linked to banks and brokers' existing financial products.

There’s a reason that more investors today seek ways to generate positive environmental impact alongside a financial return. StockRepublic wants to address this by highlighting how climate-friendly their users' investments are and by providing concrete proposals on how to improve their CO2 impact right away. – Our vision is to gather all information in one place and contribute to more sustainable savings. This investment will help us continue the launch of our platform within banks and partners in several European countries, says Hanna Bjurström, Chairman of the Board of StockRepublic.

www.stockrepublic.io opens the vault to customer knowledge, engagement and data. We provide a social network for investors that is easy to connect and fast to launch. By connecting anonymized portfolios in real-time, we open up for sharing knowledge, benchmarks and best practice for better investments. StockRepublic provides a mobile-first solution including APIs and client applications.

Swedish fintech company StockRepublic raises new capital and forms partnership with Germany's second-largest bank

Sustainable investment is no longer a utopian dream for a distant future. It is very much a thing of today. The EU wants to implement a series of new terms called EU taxonomy for sustainable activities, or “green taxonomy”, in order to encourage companies to become more sustainable. All to help us reach the objectives of the European Green Deal and take a leap towards reaching a sustainable, circular economy.

StockRepublic implemented several tools on our social trading platform from the start, in order to help and encourage users to make sustainable investment choices. “How to invest in a climate friendly way?” is one of the most important questions of our time, and we try to help our users to explore green portfolios by giving them suggestions to reduce CO2 risk and encouraging them to follow climate friendly profiles.

Sustainable investment is very much a thing of today.

Sustainable investment is very much a thing of today

The Internet, cookies and social media have made it easier for organizations to track the behavior of their customers. As Wilhelm Sporrong says: “It is no longer enough to ask the customers what they want” – because their behavior is what tells you what they really want, not their answers.

That is why open banking is such a great opportunity for banks: a way to collect and use consumer data in order to optimize banking services and analyze the users’ saving and spending habits. But how to use this data to further grow the customers’ – and thus the banks’ – capital? Our social trading platform collects valuable user data in order to improve their investment returns. By implementing this in your online bank, you will have access to a vast amount of user data to analyze customer behavior – all to help savers grow their investment portfolios in a socially engaging way!

Data – the currency of the future

“Investing in climate solutions can help investors mitigate the systemic risks of climate change, hedge against risks to their carbon intensive investments, and provide opportunities for diversification and strong returns as the world transitions to a low carbon, clean energy economy.” – Climate Solutions Investment Initiative

The stock market has always mirrored the needs of society and the wants of people. What many most urgently feel they need right now is to tackle the climate crisis, and want to invest accordingly – to use their resources for a better future, by investing in clean and sustainable energy. StockRepublic’s platform enables its users to work towards a sustainable future by helping them explore green portfolios and follow climate friendly profiles. We also offer suggestions to help users reduce CO2 risk.

Explore green portfolios and follow climate friendly profiles!

Explore green portfolios and follow climate friendly profiles

Digitalization has brought with it a myriad of changes. Change in society as a whole and changes in human behaviors. More and more experiences – from shopping, banking to dating – are moving online. StockRepublic caught up with Wilhelm Sporrong, CEO and founder of Gamifiera, to get his take on cynical KPIs, social trading, and the importance of creating engaging customer experiences.

has had an inspirational and unique career journey. It started at

, where he was in sales before becoming CEO after a few short years. During his time at Webhallen, the company went from being a small business in a basement to hit turnover of SEK 2 billion.

– At Webhallen we were very early with our omnichannel concept. We showed current stock status both online and in-store, and quickly discovered that customers liked this type of experience. For me, it was important that we were pioneers – that we dared to try multiple ideas and not worry unnecessarily. How could you improve the online customer experience so that visitors came back time and again? That question, along with the satisfaction of finding a concept that works, drove me forward.

After several years of trial and error at Webhallen did Wilhelm and his highly competent colleagues develop a concept that seemed to work better than others. On this journey they highlighted the importance of a good digital customer experience which led them to start

– During my years in retail I saw what didn’t work. I saw how the desperate pursuit of customers for membership programs and loyalty program spamming often drove customers away rather than attracting new ones. I call it cynical KPIs: being so data-driven that you only cater to the tiny percentage of people who actually click on a link in an email and ignore everyone else who thinks membership programs are just a hassle. Even if you’re a member of all the pharmacy chains, most people still buy everything from Apotea.se, which doesn’t bother with a loyalty program.

Rational drivers versus emotional drivers

To avoid falling into the trap of focusing exclusively on cynical KPIs – and thereby risk alienating potential customers –

switched its focus from rational drivers to emotional ones.

– The digital tools that e-commerce uses often focus on customers’ rational drivers: when you ask a customer what they want, they often answer rationally. They want cheaper products, sales, and bigger refunds. By contrast, social media focuses on visitors’ emotional drivers: longing to be part of a context, affirmation, and the willingness to interact and communicate with others. E-commerce rarely succeeds in generating the engagement among visitors that social media does, says Wilhelm and continues:

– It's time to level up the digital customer experience. Today, it’s not enough to just ask a question to find out what the customer wants. You also have to look at their behaviors: what do they spend their time on and why? The answer is often that they engage in social media and that they want a ton of likes. It’s not rational, and what’s more, there’s no money in it. Spending time and money playing CandyCrush is an irrational behavior but a perfect example of an emotional drive. Through our platform, Gamifiera works to create this sort of engagement and uses these emotional drivers to benefit e-commerce.