# Purpose as a performance metric: how Contribe turned good causes into conversion drivers > Christoffer Bouet left strategy consulting because he wanted to move the needle on something that actually mattered. At 29, he co-founded Contribe — a plugin that embeds a free good cause into the ecommerce checkout. The results challenge everything ecommerce has assumed about friction. **Author:** Nicklas Beran Bergström **Published:** March 14, 2025 **Tags:** Ecommerce, Personalization, Consumer Behaviour, Purpose, Retention --- Most of the decisions that make ecommerce better for shoppers are invisible. Faster checkout. Smarter recommendations. Fewer steps to payment. Christoffer Bouet is doing something different. He's adding a step — and arguing that the psychology it creates is more powerful than any friction it introduces. [Christoffer](https://www.linkedin.com/in/christoffer-w-bouet-9086b7aa/) is the co-founder and CEO of [Contribe](https://www.contribe.io/da-dk), a platform that embeds a free good cause into the ecommerce checkout. When a shopper buys something, a cause gets funded. No opt-in. No extra cost. The merchant pays. The shopper chooses where the contribution goes. We sat down with Christoffer as part of our [Hello Retail Conversations](/en/conversations/) series — unscripted conversations with people shaping how ecommerce works.

Watch the full conversation with Christoffer here →

## The gap he was trying to close Before Contribe, Christoffer spent four years in strategy consulting. He was good at it. But something kept bothering him. > "Moving the needle a little bit to make a few people a bit richer — that's giving me no sense of purpose at all." — Christoffer Bouet The work was technically interesting. The clients were serious. But at the end of the day, the impact was narrow. A small group of shareholders ended up slightly better off. That wasn't enough. He left consulting, took on a CEO role at another tech startup, and eventually co-founded Contribe in late 2022 alongside two co-founders — Tobias and Lasse — who were already developing ideas in the impact space. The mission was straightforward: build something where commercial success and positive impact don't compete. > "When I'm old and done working, I want to look back and be like, I made the world a better place for some people." — Christoffer Bouet ![Christoffer Bouet at Hello Retail Conversations](/images/blog/purpose-as-a-performance-metric-christoffer-bouet/christoffer-01.webp) ## What Contribe actually does The product is a plugin. It lives on the product page, in the cart, or at checkout — wherever the merchant chooses to place it. When a shopper completes a purchase, they're shown a cause to support: mental health, environmental initiatives, ocean plastic collection. The choice is theirs. The cost is the merchant's. After the purchase, the shopper can follow what happened — when the contribution was made, who received it, what it funded. It's designed to turn a transactional moment into something that lingers. Contribe currently works with around 300 merchants across 12 countries. Most are in the mid-market range — somewhere between one and thirty million euros in annual revenue. These are companies large enough to care about retention metrics but small enough to move quickly. The numbers Christoffer shares are concrete. On average, merchants using Contribe see a 20% revenue lift. Shoppers return 30% faster than they otherwise would. > "When users try Contribe on a merchant e-commerce store, we can see that they come back 30% faster than the normal users. It's not just a purchase. It's something bigger. And that feeling, you want to get that again and again and again." — Christoffer Bouet ## The psychology behind the numbers To understand why this works, you have to start with what purchasing actually feels like. Christoffer makes a point that most ecommerce people find counterintuitive: spending money is psychologically uncomfortable. Getting a product is satisfying. The act of handing over money isn't. > "Doing a purchase is one of the largest burdens of people, psychological. Like purchasing stuff is actually a burden. You want to receive the t-shirt, but making the actual purchase, spending money — people don't like that." — Christoffer Bouet Contribe changes that calculus. The shopper still pays the same amount. But they also get to do something good. The net emotional experience shifts. What Contribe hears repeatedly from end consumers supports this: > "If a shop uses this, I would buy more. I would come back more often. I would be more attached to the brand." — Contribe consumer research This is showing up in Trustpilot reviews and in direct newsletter replies. When merchants promote their Contribe initiatives, customers write back. ![Christoffer Bouet and Rasmus in conversation](/images/blog/purpose-as-a-performance-metric-christoffer-bouet/christoffer-02.webp) ## The generational shift most brands are underestimating The commercial case for Contribe rests on a broader trend that Christoffer tracks closely. IBM's biennial consumer research now shows that purpose-driven consumers are the largest single consumer group globally — over 50% in the most recent data. The shift has happened across all age groups and geographies. Purpose is no longer a niche preference. But the generational dimension is where Christoffer gets specific. > "There really is a cliff right now that I think is probably the biggest ever, literally the biggest ever — because we're seeing a generation who's born on the internet who are having a totally different value set." — Christoffer Bouet Gen Z is 2.5 billion consumers. Within five years, they will have more spending power than any other generation. They didn't grow up with the same assumptions about work, home ownership, or brand loyalty. What they care about is alignment — between what a brand says and what it does. The executives Christoffer pitches to are often in their forties or fifties. They didn't grow up with these values. They're skeptical. His response is consistent: the product won't work on you. But a lot of your customers are not you. ## The friction paradox Ecommerce has spent twenty years removing friction. Every extra click is a liability. Every additional form field reduces conversion. The ideal checkout is the one that barely exists. Contribe adds a step to that flow — and argues it's worth it. > "Contribe is always optional. You're never forced to use it. You can just run through the purchase. But the most forward-thinking brands are already moving away from ultra-minimal checkout design toward richer, more experience-led flows." — Christoffer Bouet His read on where ecommerce is going: the cleanest checkout isn't always the best one. American brands that are front-runners on new ideas are building complex, opportunity-rich checkout experiences. Upsells, personalization, choices. The frictionless ideal is starting to look dated. ![Christoffer Bouet at Hello Retail Conversations](/images/blog/purpose-as-a-performance-metric-christoffer-bouet/christoffer-03.webp) ## The surprise: nobody does it just to do good One of the most revealing parts of the conversation is what Contribe learned about merchant motivation in their first year. Going in, Christoffer expected to find brands who would sign up because they genuinely wanted to do good. Companies with sustainability as a core identity, not a marketing claim. They would be the obvious early adopters. That's not what happened. > "I've sat with the greenest, most environmental friendly, most impact driven brands who are speaking so loudly in all commercials and on LinkedIn about how they just want to do good. And then when I talk to them, they're like: we only do this if we can earn money from it." — Christoffer Bouet Even the most purpose-driven brands run through the same filter: what's the ROI? Contribe adapted. The pitch that closes deals is not the impact story first. It's the performance story — revenue lift, retention, conversion — with the impact as an amplifier. > "You can earn more money, you can increase your performance, you can attract new consumers. Plus you're making the world a better place. But it's not 'you're making the world a better place, and plus you earn more money.' It's the other way around." — Christoffer Bouet This isn't a compromise. It's the honest framing. The business case is real. The impact is real. Leading with both in the wrong order doesn't serve either. ![Christoffer Bouet during the conversation](/images/blog/purpose-as-a-performance-metric-christoffer-bouet/christoffer-04.webp) ## On greenwashing — and how Contribe handles it The obvious concern is obvious. Causes go wrong. NGOs have failed to deliver on promises. Companies get burned by association. Contribe runs a 12-step vetting process before any NGO joins the platform. They also maintain a 90-day window between receiving merchant contributions and disbursing them — which gives them room to redirect funds if something goes wrong before the payout. But Christoffer draws a clear line around what Contribe is and isn't: > "Using Contribe doesn't make you sustainable or anything. We are directing money towards good causes. We're doing good stuff. We're making your consumers happy, but you should never be able to use Contribe as a means to say, oh, we're so sustainable and everything is good." — Christoffer Bouet If a brand produces poorly, Contribe doesn't fix that. They say so directly to merchants. The platform funds causes — it doesn't certify the company using it. ## The bigger vision: a network, not just a plugin Where Christoffer is building toward is something larger than a checkout add-on. Contribe already has data on three million end consumers. The long-term vision is a marketplace layer — a place where shoppers can follow their impact history across merchants, accumulate rewards, and discover brands through their contribution to causes. Something closer to a loyalty and discovery ecosystem than a plugin. Think Klarna or Apple Pay as an analogy: present across merchants, recognized by consumers, providing value on both sides. Contribe wants that position in the impact space. > "Contribe has the opportunity to become a new customer acquisition channel. And when you have that opportunity, you just need to follow that." — Christoffer Bouet ## What Hello Retail brings to this The connection between Contribe and what we build at Hello Retail is about timing and relevance. Contribe creates a positive emotional signal at the moment of purchase. Hello Retail's [Product Intelligence](/en/product-intelligence/) and [Product Agents](/en/product-agents/) extend that signal forward — knowing which products a shopper viewed, which ones they're likely to buy next, and when to reach back out. A shopper who came back 30% faster because of a Contribe experience is more receptive to the right email at the right moment. The behavioral layer and the purpose layer reinforce each other. ## Final thought Christoffer's closing point in the conversation is also his most direct advice to the brands he pitches: > "The world will look totally different only five years from now. And I think brands need to grasp that. Invest in that future, even though it might not be tomorrow, because if you do it in total panic at closing time, you've already lost to the new wave." — Christoffer Bouet Purpose, in his framing, isn't a value statement. It's a strategic position. And the brands who treat it that way — early, deliberately, tied to real business metrics — are the ones already seeing the results. **[Watch the full conversation with Christoffer Bouet on the Hello Retail Conversations page →](/en/conversations/purpose/)** --- *This content is from the Hello Retail blog. For the full experience with images and formatting, visit [helloretail.com/en/blog/2025-03-14-purpose-as-a-performance-metric-christoffer-bouet](https://helloretail.com/en/blog/2025-03-14-purpose-as-a-performance-metric-christoffer-bouet)*