ALPHARETTA, Ga. — PDI has acquired ZipLine, along with its expertise in ACH (Automated Clearing House) payment and mobile payment technology.
ZipLine processes more than six million transactions a month for retailers such as Circle K, Cumberland Farms, Irving Oil, Giant Eagle (GetGo) and Spinx. The acquisition adds new loyalty capabilities to the PDI Marketing Cloud Platform, including customer engagement tools, offers, insights, and integrated digital payments. According to ZipLine’s Purchase Lift Model study, of those customers that join a private label debit loyalty program, 83% became active users.
“Convenience retailers, wholesale petroleum providers and grocers have longed for a solution that seamlessly brings together loyalty and digital payments,” said Brian Jefferson, senior vice president and general manager, retail, marketing cloud solutions at PDI. “We’re excited to add ZipLine’s best-in-class ACH and mobile payment technology to deliver on this in a cost-effective, simple manner.”
With PDI Insights Cloud (built on the SwiftIQ platform acquired earlier this year), convenience retailers and CPG brands can gain insights into transaction and consumer data. The addition of ZipLine’s mobile payment gateway brings visibility to the process, from earning rewards, receiving offers and promotions, and making purchases in the store and at the pump.
“We feel confident that PDI is the perfect match for our best-in-class payment platform. The combination of both entities will strongly support our merchant partners in enhancing the guest experience and brand affinity,” said Stephen Goodrich, CEO at ZipLine.
“Making loyalty easy for this industry through an end-to-end solution has been our mission from the beginning,” said Brandon Logsdon, president and general manager of marketing cloud solutions at PDI. “With the addition of Zipline, we have built a holistic ecosystem that begins with a mobile transaction at the pump, includes consumer loyalty, customer relationship management and offers that provide total transaction visibility in the back office, enabling unmatched insights. This is extremely meaningful to our market.”
Alpharetta, Ga.-based PDI specializes in enterprise software for convenience retailers and petroleum wholesalers. More than 1,500 customers in more than 200,000 locations worldwide use its ERP, logistics, fuel pricing and marketing cloud solutions to provide insights. PDI also owns and operates the Fuel Rewards loyalty program.
Portland, Maine-based ZipLine helps merchants build consumer loyalty and market share with private-label debit, rewards and gift card programs. With a single platform for personalized rewards and branded debit payment, ZipLine’s clients gain access to loyalty tools while saving on interchange fees. ZipLine’s c-store clients include Circle K, Speedway and more. Chicago-based Cowen served as financial advisor to ZipLine in the transaction.
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