Visa is working with Gap to deliver real-time discounts and promotions to opt-in consumers via SMS. Interested customers sign-up for the service to be notified of money-saving deals in real-time while shopping. In other words, as a consumer you get to receive the mentioned special offers on your mobile device when qualifying transactions are made with an enrolled Visa account.
The new service is part of Visa’s larger strategy to “personalize the consumer shopping experience,” while at the same time delivering more value to merchants and financial institutions.
Gap started trialing the new Visa service in November 2010 to test the customer response. Customers enrolled via a secure website and were sent Gap offers when they made Visa transactions meeting certain pre-determined program criteria, such as shopping at a merchant within a specified zip code, a specific merchant category type, or spend on a specific day or during a specified time period. Special offers were redeemed by presenting the text message displayed on a mobile device at the Gap stores.
Obviously the pilot program with Gap was a success and now Visa plans to make the new service available to retailers nationwide. Love it! 🙂