02 · Growth & monetisation · Tata CLiQ
Power Cash: an incentive system that had to fight the finance team’s own numbers
Every discount pattern on the platform was eroding margin. Instead of promoting Power Cash everywhere, I scoped it to the exact moments people decide to buy, and made it legible rather than loud.
-
2×
checkout initiation for Power Cash users vs. regular users
-
~1.8×
average order value vs. regular users
-
↓
overall discount burn for CLiQ
Context
The louder the discount, the less it was worth
CLiQ needed a brand-funded incentive mechanic. But every existing discount pattern on the platform was eroding margin: the more visible a discount was, the more indiscriminately it got used, discount burn included.
The decision
Everywhere, or exactly where it matters?
The fork
Make the incentive maximally visible everywhere, or scope it precisely to the product page and cart, tied to specific brand-funded offers?
Why this, not that
The goal was intentional usage, not more usage
I chose scoped, contextual visibility over platform-wide promotion. The goal wasn’t “more discount usage”. It was more intentional usage that didn’t cannibalise brand-funded margin.
That meant designing callouts that read as a specific, understandable offer at the exact decision point, the product page and the cart, rather than an ambient “sale” signal users learn to tune out.
What happened
Higher-value orders, lower discount burn
- Power Cash users showed 2× higher checkout initiation than regular users
- They also had ~1.8× higher average order value
- All while reducing CLiQ’s overall discount burn
What I’d argue
Growth design is usually framed as “make the incentive more visible”. The harder, more valuable version is making it more legible at the moment it matters. Visibility and legibility aren’t the same thing, and conflating them is how platforms end up training users to ignore every banner.