Shopkick is no longer just a mobile rewards app. The location-based app, which launched three years ago, until now has mainly been based on rewarding users by giving them what shopkick calls kicks—essentially points—for walking into participating stores and for taking actions such as scanning bar codes on products or buying certain items in stores. Those kicks are redeemable for such things as gift cards and song downloads. Now, however, shopkick has taken its mobile app one step further by enabling app users to buy from some retailers within the app.
When in the app, browsing products, users are presented with two options for taking action with a product: “like” the item for later and be reminded of that product when they walk through a store, or “buy” it directly in the app. Currently shopkick enables in-app purchasing for products from 30 retailers, including Target Corp., Macy’s Inc., Best Buy Co. Inc., Old Navy, Anthropologie, Banana Republic, The Gymboree Corp., Bath & Body Works and Urban Outfitters Inc.
“For example, at Target you can buy household items like a blender or stemless wine glasses or cool fashion at American Eagle Outfitters,” says Cyriac Roeding, CEO and co-founder of shopkick.
A shopper who chooses to buy through the shopkick app, is connected to a retailer’s mobile site so that the shopper never has to leave the app, Roeding says.
“When you see a product in shopkick that you want to buy, we don’t just direct you to the home page of that retailer’s site, but rather directly to that specific product page, and from within the shopkick app,” he says. “So if you are looking at a specific dress, you can buy it in shopkick without even leaving the app.”
While the shopper lands on the product page of the item she clicked to buy, she can also navigate around the rest of the mobile site. Each purchase made within the app gets a shopper rewards points. The amount of kicks doled out depends on the product and the price, shopkick says.
Other updates to the app include the ability for consumers to save all their favorite items across retailers intobooks that they can organize by themes or product categories. Shoppers can customize their books with a personal cover photo and share them with other shopkick users or on Facebook.
“Shopping happens when you feel like it—whether in the store, at home on the couch, or on the train to work,” Roeding says. “We want to make sure shopkick is there, wherever and whenever, to make shopping more fun and rewarding. We combined shopkick’s in-store functionality with curated product books and the ability to earn kicks for buying right in the app to make every type of shopping experience better.”
Target is No. 34 in the Internet Retailer Mobile 400; Macys, No. 21; Best Buy, No. 81; and Urban Outfitters No. 166.
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