Owners of select Samsung Galaxy smartphones and tablets are taking advantage of a new mobile commerce technology built right into their devices. Mobeam Inc.’s patented light technology enables a shopper to use a mobile app-based bar code scanner to scan codes on coupons, loyalty cards and gift cards into her Samsung device, then replicates the code onscreen so the code can be read by an in-store point-of-sale scanner, including conventional laser scanners found at stores today.
That is significant because previously laser scanners could not scan coupons or codes off of smartphones and tablets because the laser simply bounces off the screen. Retailers today are starting to migrate to optical scanners, which can scan mobile devices. But laser scanners dominate today, with about 165 million in use. Waiting for retailers to update all of those machines will take far longer than updating technology in smartphones, Mobeam says.
The Mobeam technology emanates pulses of light that mimic a black-and-white bar code when a mobile device displays a coupon or code. Laser scanners can read that light before the laser can get to a device screen, thus bypassing the problem of lasers bouncing off mobile device screens.
The technology is available on Samsung Galaxy S4, S5, Note 3 and Note 4 mobile devices. Mobeam says it will announce another major manufacturer integration by year’s end. The “beaming” technology requires a chip replacement to be handled before phones and tablets are shipped by manufacturers.
Newer point-of-sale and in-aisle optical scanners today get around the laser problem by using imaging technologies to read bar codes directly from smartphones and tablets.
Shoppers store and access coupons, codes and rewards information via Mobeam’s Beep’nGo mobile app. The app has been downloaded more than 5 million times in the five months since its debut, says Mobeam, which works with retailers on trackable coupon offers via the app, taking a cut of sales that it declines to reveal.
“It’s only a matter of time before the smartphone is at the center of the entire commerce experience, whether that’s in-store or online,” says Kang Lee, president and CEO of Mobeam. The app gaining 1 million users a month in the first five months, and consumers redemming 1 million offers via the app in those five months, indicates Beep’nGo is intriguing consumers, the company says.
Samsung holds the second largest share of smartphones in the United States. Mobeam says more than 140 million Samsung smartphones containing the light technology will ship worldwide by the end of 2014.
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