New Shopkick app rewards users for shoppingPosted by Damon Kiesow at 11:00 AM on Aug. 17, 2010
New York Times
Shopkick, a new app that hopes to drive retail foot traffic and reward consumers at the same time, launches today for the iPhone. An Android version is expected to come out later this fall.Stephanie Clifford reports that the new app is backed by a collection of major retailers -- including Sports Authority, Macy's, Best Buy and American Eagle Outfitters -- and mall operator Simon Property Group.
The premise of the app is that checking-in at a store is not as valuable to the owner as actually getting a consumer on the retail floor interacting with the merchandise. Shopkick will provide a virtual currency called "kickbucks" for a variety of activities.
Simply checking in might be worth one point, but more engaged activities will be rewarded with significantly more points. Kickbucks can be redeemed for Facebook credits and used for everything from online games to charity donations.
Because the app works in partnership with retailers, the confirmation and tracking system will allow more specific location awareness within the store than would be possible with GPS, which is typically inaccurate indoors. The question, as Business Insider's Dan Frommer points out, is: Will the "kickbuck" rewards be sufficient to encourage consumers to check-in, scan bar codes, visit the dressing room and perform other reward-generating activities?
As Clifford points out, the rewards are not necessarily free from a privacy perspective:
"Whether shoppers will get a kick, so to speak, out of being followed -- and pinged from one floor of a store to the next -- remains debatable. What retailers see as sophisticated marketing, privacy advocates see as intrusive. Shopkick knows 'where you are, what you buy, your spending habits, passions, excesses,' Jeffrey Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, said via e-mail."
Here's a video explaining how the Shopkick app works:
via poynter.org