If you own a Samsung phone you know how obnoxious Bixby, Samsung's virtual assistant, can be; but the company is determined to make Bixby more useful and more liked among their users. Before discussing more about cash back with Bixby, it's important we discuss their newest Samsung Pay, available on the Galaxy S9 and S9+.
Samsung and Bixby
When Android Pay, or anything similar to it, came out it was a phenomenon. To be able to use your phone to pay for items was a convenient feature. Even thought it's been around for several years now not every store has upgraded their machines to support something like Android pay.
Samsung decided to use a different form of payment that was just as convenient. Instead of using Near Field Communication or NFC, Samsung Pay will start supporting Magnetic Secure Transmission or MTS. This new feature makes paying with your phone more accessible than Android or Apple Pay. According to Samsung's official site, MTS can be used on "nearly all payment terminals with a card reader." What better way to accompany a more convenient paying system than to update shopping all together.
'Holistic' Shopping
Cash back rewards is nothing new so what's so special about Samsung's new cash back reward system? First we should take a look at how Bixby shopping works. According to their official site Samsung wants to make the process of shopping easier.
Instead of trying to remember to ask or look up where you can buy something the phone company's Bixby allows you to take a picture of what it is you want to buy and it will "direct you to a partner's website" that has the item and you can buy it. Pretty useful right? They already offer Samsung Rewards which allows shoppers who use their services to build up points as they buy.
The company wanted to give more back to their customers which is why they are introducing Cash back rewards.
Samsung offers a great explanation to how this new system works saying, "users will find a range of exclusive offers from leading retailers. When they click on the offer they want and complete a purchase through the participating merchant" you will then get a percentage of what you spent back.
This cash back can be put towards another purchase as long as it's through Samsung Pay. This of course means the offers aren't available everywhere but only with the retailers Samsung is currently partnered with. If your favorite retailer isn't on the list, no worries, Samsung's goal is to continue building more partnerships.
