CPROMO helps consumers and retailers do away with plastic

“What we’re doing here is good not just for the customers and businesses, but for future generations and the planet. This is why we wanted to choose a reliable company like Bell for our data services.”
Kenney Liu, Founder and CEO
CPROMO

Widespread bans on single-use plastics have left many retailers and consumers searching for a convenient, environmentally friendly alternative to plastic shopping bags. CPROMO’s biodegradable bag dispensers answer that call, providing free compostable bags with a quick scan of a QR code. With ambitious plans to roll out thousands of machines nation-wide by the end of 2024, CPROMO needed reliable connectivity and an efficient IoT device management solution to ensure that its biodegradable bags are always within reach. With Bell, CPROMO founder and CEO Kenney Liu found both.

Reliable IoT connectivity underpins convenience

Getting bags from CPROMO’s dispensers is easy: a shopper uses their phone to scan a QR code on the machine, enters their phone number and indicates how many bags they want (up to three per day). The dispenser takes care of the rest. Naturally, connectivity is critical to the customer experience, especially since CPROMO has hundreds of dispensers to manage and maintain across Saskatchewan. Because the dispensers rely on connecting with a user’s smartphone, Liu can’t afford system outages.

Liu’s business model depends on connectivity for his two revenue streams. The first stream comes from the advertisements shown on each machine’s built-in display. Each bag dispensed also helps generates carbon credits that CPROMO can sell to other businesses to offset their emissions. Validating those carbon credits depends on reliable tracking and reporting of all bags dispensed – data that can’t be collected if the machine isn’t online.

Laying the foundation for a national rollout

Today, the bag dispensers use SIM cards to run on Bell’s 4G/LTE network, which delivers exceptional performance and reliable connectivity. But that wasn’t always the case. Before CPROMO partnered with Bell, its dispensers would frequently display errors due to a lost connectivity or trouble maintaining signal strength. The company was spending up to $600 every week sending technicians on-site for troubleshooting.

“When I demo my machines, or we do a pilot, I have to know that the network is reliable. 
I get that with Bell.”

Another challenge was managing the previous provider’s SIMs and rate plans. The delivered cards came with the rate plans already active, so CPROMO was paying for connectivity even before the dispensers were placed in a store and brought online. This challenged the company’s ability to scale because pre-ordering SIMs in bulk meant taking on significant ongoing costs. Activating the installed SIMs also required manual data entry, which slowed deployment even more.

Liu recognized that better connectivity and SIM management was essential to fulfilling CPROMO’s brand promise of “environmental protection within reach.” Network reliability was also table -stakes for bringing new retail partners on board with successful demos. CPROMO plans to deploy 3,500 machines in Saskatchewan, followed by 40,000 across Canada by the end of 2024. This makes Bell’s national scale and reputation for reliability important supports for that growth.

The right coverage and expertise

When CPROMO started working with Bell, the onboarding process was fast and smooth. Since then, Liu says that there haven’t been any connection problems with the dispensers.

CPROMO also uses the Bell Control Centre IoT management platform to efficiently manage and maintain its bag dispensers – and set up new ones faster. With Bell Control Centre, SIM card entry is automatic, and new cards can be ordered directly through the platform, saving time and cutting costs. Importantly, Bell Control Centre lets Liu’s team activate SIMs remotely, meaning that he doesn’t need to pay rate plans until the dispensers are in use. This allows CPROMO to order in bulk – either to keep SIMS on hand or have them pre-installed by the manufacturer. And because the SIMs are data-only, dispensers receiving voice calls are a thing of the past. Bell Control Centre also monitors the health of all SIM cards. If there’s a problem, the platform can provide the information required for a quick resolution.

CPROMO is now working on the next version of the bag dispenser’s management system, which will enable enhanced analysis of consumer habits. This requires collecting more data, which the Bell network has made possible. Because of the reliable connectivity provided by Bell, CPROMO has seen a 20% increase in user data generated per day. These insights can be used to improve service, such as adding machines where they’re needed most or adjusting the maximum number of bags based on demand.

What’s next

From the beginning, Liu was impressed with Bell’s service-oriented approach. “Bell acts more like a business partner than just a service provider,” he says. “They take a real interest in my long-term business development and are ready to grow and step into the future with me.”

That future includes national expansion plans, supported by a recently- secured $1.2 million investment. As the company grows, it will need to open new locations and onboard staff across the country, and Liu anticipates that Bell will play a role in providing connectivity to those locations.

“With Bell’s help, we’ll be the first to take this kind of carbon credit exchange program international.”