The Sports Authority Inc. is the latest retailer to join Shopkick’s national network of retailers and consumer brand manufacturers. The sporting goods merchant, No. 251 in the 2014 Internet Retailer Mobile 500, operates 475 stores in 43 states.

A consumer who downloads the Shopkick app for Apple Inc. iPhones or smartphones running Google Inc.’s Android and enables the app to track her location can earn reward points called kicks when she checks in upon entering a participating merchant’s store, browses special offers (from that retailer or consumer brand manufacturers with products in-store) in a store, scans bar codes on products or makes a purchase at a store. Shopkick users can redeem kicks for store gift cards, free meals, Coach handbags, song downloads, movie tickets, donations to charity and more.

Shopkick reports 16 retailers, 8,200 locations, and more than 150 consumer brand manufacturers in its mobile commerce network. They include American Eagle Outfitters Inc., Best Buy Co., Crate and Barrel, J.C. Penney Co. Inc., Kraft Foods, Levi Strauss & Co., Macy’s Inc., Old Navy, Pepsi, Procter & Gamble, Revlon, Sony Corp., Target Corp. and West Elm. MasterCard and Visa also have marketing deals with Shopkick. Shopkick says it delivers to stores more informed shoppers who spend more and gives brands enhanced ways to connect with and influence shoppers.

8.1 million U.S. consumers on smartphones visited the Shopkick app in October 2013, up 17.4% from 6.9 million in October 2012, web measurement firm comScore Inc. reports.

On Thanksgiving and Black Friday 2013 combined, Shopkick  registered 50 million product views, more than 1.2 million bar code scans, and nearly 300,000 store check-ins, the company reports. Shopkick users earned kicks rewards points equivalent to more than $22 million the same two days, the company adds.

In July, Shopkick expanded beyond rewards to in-app purchasing. The location-based app, which launched three years ago, presents users with two options for taking action with a product: Like the item while browsing at home so the app automatically sends a reminder when the user is in a store and near the item, or Buy the item directly in the app. Shopkick enables in-app purchasing for products from 30 retailers including Anthropologie, Banana Republic, Bath & Body Works, Best Buy, The Gymboree Corp., Macy’s, Old Navy, Target and Urban Outfitters Inc.