Established in 2008 by founder Gary Purcell, Allgo Global Rewards is an award-winning Irish company that engages and motivates employees through reward & recognition. They provide business clients with bespoke recognition technology and market-leading rewards such as the tax-free Allgo Mastercard Gift Card. They also run allgifts.ie - Ireland’s largest gift voucher and experience website. They serve over 2,500 clients, and manage reward & recognition programmes in Ireland, UK, EMEA, & Australia.

The Road to Self-Employment

Gary studied Marketing & Languages in DCU, graduating in 1992 and then worked for 12 years in a number of large multi-national companies – including Kerry Group, UPS and Conduit plc. He gained experience in sales, marketing and general management, and got to see what working life was like in other countries, particularly in the UK, Germany, Austria and Australia.

“While I liked the career opportunities that corporate life offered, I didn’t like the politics that seemed to increase the higher up the corporate ladder you climbed. In 2004, I left the corporate world without a real plan, but with the idea that I’d like to work for myself.

 I started helping a college friend launch an innovative online wedding list service, and after that I never had a “real job” again.  When the wedding list business proved difficult to scale, I launched a gifting website on my own, and then pivoted the business towards B2B incentive, recognition, and reward services.” Gary tells us.

Independent Culture that makes Allgo Different from Others in Their Industry

“First and foremost, we are still 100% founder owned and led. Having not taken on any external investment to date, we operate as a challenger brand and maintain a strong independent culture. Our relatively small size means that we can offer a flexibility and a personal service that larger companies struggle to match” Gary explains.

Allgo also place a lot of emphasise on the core values as a key differentiator for their team – Proactivity, Caring, Innovative, Striving, Positivity and Openness.

Biggest Challenges and Opportunities

Gary says that the biggest challenge for Allgo was getting started.

“I launched our gift website, allgifts.ie, just as the world economy started its meltdown in 2008. I remember spending €30,000 on a radio ad campaign to launch allgifts.ie in Dec 2008, and only generating €30,000 in gross sales! I learned the value of persistence and hard work, as well as relying on my natural stubbornness to keep the business going.”

 The biggest opportunity, Gary tells us, was gaining their first client for their points-based incentive system.

“I was sitting in the office one day in 2012 when the phone rang and the person on the other end told me they were from Citroen Ireland and they were just checking that the champagne they had ordered on allgifts.ie would be delivered by lunchtime. I looked up the order and discovered that the delivery had been completely missed by our warehouse, so I told the customer “absolutely, it’s on the way now”, jumped in the car and drove to an off licence and then to Citroen to deliver the champagne.

While handing over the order, the person asked what else Allgo did, and even though we were still only developing the product, I told them we did points-based incentives. A month later they called back as they wanted to implement an incentive programme for their car dealership network in Ireland. Citroen became our very first B2B client, and since then we have provided points-based incentive and employee recognition programmes to the likes of Volkswagen, Heineken, Trend Micro, Sogeti and Irish Distillers to name but a few.”

Pivots

“One of our biggest pivots was moving from a consumer-focused business to a predominantly B2B one. I had noticed that a lot of businesses were using allgifts.ie to incentivise and reward their employees and customers. Based on this real life market research, I developed the first iteration of our B2B platform in 2012, and now 90% of our sales is B2B.”

“Another pivot was in 2016 when we launched Allgo Mastercard Gift Card to target the €500 Small Benefit market in Ireland – a gift card sold exclusively to businesses that can be spent by employees anywhere that accepts Mastercard – instore, online or even abroad. This brought us from being a niche provider of incentive & recognition technology to a “mass market” provider of gift cards to Irish businesses of all sizes. We now provide our gift card to over 2,500 business customers each year.”

Stand Out Moments

“In 2014, I decided to attend the global Incentive Marketing Association summit in the US. I was blown away by the sheer size of the industry we operated in, and by the fact that what Allgo was doing was largely on a par with some of the biggest players in the US, which gave me a lot of confidence we were on the right track.

A more personal standout moment was in 2019. I was standing in the queue in my local Tesco, when the woman in front of me pulled out an Allgo Mastercard Gift Card to pay for her shopping. I knew then that we were making inroads in the market!” Gary says.

LEO Supports

In 2020 & 2021, Gary was approved for Business Expansion grants, which enabled him to hire four full time employees.

“LEO has really helped us ramp up our team, and being a self-funded company, this has been vital in growing our team as our business has expanded.”

Plans for the Future

Gary wants to fulfil Allgo’s mission of being the largest Irish-owned recognition company and to serve clients around the globe.

“Next year, we are launching a Sterling Mastercard gift card and upgrading our recognition platform to be multi-lingual and multi-currency. We will then start to proactively market our services in international markets for the first time.” Gary explains.

Advice for New Entrepreneurs

“Don’t start a business to get rich quick. Start a business because you have an intrinsic desire to work on something that is your own.”

Contact

Allgo Rewards,

Digital Depot,

The Digital Hub,

Dublin 8,

D08TCV4,

Ireland.

Telephone: +353 1 253 0040 

Website: www.allgo.ie | www.AllGifts.ie 

Email: sales@allgo.ie

Email: help@allgo.ie