I’ve written a lot about how mobile technology can enhance shopping and shopkick has just released some impressive numbers from 2011: the app and service drove more than $110 million in revenues for retailers and brands last year.
If you’re not familiar with shopkick, it rewards users for physically entering stores with virtual points which eventually can be redeemed for physical and virtual goods. The service relies on equipment which is physically installed in stores to interact with the phone via high-frequency signals. While this includes a higher barrier to entry, it ensures the store that you’re actually in there, no just near it (which could happen with using just GPS positioning).
While some users go into retail stores to use it as a showroom for items they wish to purchase online, shopkick gives the retailers an ability to enhance the in-store experience. Many shoppers may still rely on price as their sole decider – retailers probably can’t match online stores – but retail stores still have many advantages including the immediacy of the purchase and the overall shopping experience.
Shopkick has signed up with some major retailers like Best Buy and it also released these figures:
- Discovery: shopkick users interact with stores in the app 150 million times per month, and that allows brand and retailers to reach them at home and on-the go. Media partnerships with InStyle and the CW amplify the discovery.
- Visits: patent-pending presence detection technology rewards shoppers simply for walking into partner stores, such as Target, Best Buy, Macy’s, Old Navy, Toys”R”Us, American Eagle, Crate & Barrel, and Simon Malls
- Interaction: scan missions and other programs encourage shoppers to pick up and interact with partner products
- Purchase: in partnership with Visa, shopkick rewards shoppers when they make a purchase at a participating partner retailer using their Visa debit or credit card as part of the Buy & Collect program
Have any of you used shopkick out there?