After recently announcing the milestone of 3 million active users, geo-coupon system a Shopkick is revealing that its mobile app helped drive more than $110 million in-store revenue for partner retailers and brands in 2011 in its first full year operating the app.
Shopkick, which is backed by Kleiner Perkins, Greylock, SV Angel and others, provides an in-store, location-based mobile shopping platform, Instead of checking in, as you would with a geo app like Foursquare, Shopkick automatically recognizes when someone with the free Android or iPhone app on their phone walks into a store. Once a Shopkick Signal is detected, the app delivers reward points called “kicks” to the user for walking into a retail store, trying on clothes, scanning a barcode and other actions.
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Shopkick, an innovative geo-coupon system that is backed by Kleiner Perkins, Greylock, SV Angel and others, is debuting a number of momentum numbers today. The startup’s service now has 3 million active users, up from 2.3 million active users in September.
Here’s how Shopkicks works. Instead of checking in, as you would with a geo app like Foursquare, Shopkick automatically recognizes when someone with the free Android or iPhone app on their phone walks into a store. Once a Shopkick Signal is detected, the app delivers reward points called “kicks” to the user for walking into a retail store, trying on clothes, scanning a barcode and other actions.
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Visa is making a major move in the commerce and technology space, teaming up with Shopkick, an innovative geo-coupon system that has received funding from Kleiner Perkins, Greylock, SV Angel and others. The two companies will begin offering consumers a way to receive rewards points for retailers at the point of sale when they use their Visa credit cards.
With the new partnership, called ‘Buy & Collect’, Shopkick users will get rewards (or ‘kicks’) for swiping their Visa debit or credit card at any one of six retailers, including ToysRus, Old Navy, Wet Seal, American Eagle, Simon Malls, and Arden B. → Read More
Online holiday shopping reached record levels in 2010. And e-commerce spending is up this year. All signs point to consumers spending even more online this holiday season. I sat down with executives from Google, eBay, PayPal and ShopKick to discuss the trends that are expected to emerge in the e-commerce space over the next few months. They center around mobile, tablets, and deals.
PayPal has more than doubled its mobile payments volume since the 2010 holiday shopping season, and we haven’t even hit the thick of this year’s rush. eBay is projecting $5 billion in mobile payments volume in 2010 and this number could increase in the next few months. And Google projects that 15 percent of total search on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving and one of the biggest shopping days of the year) will come from mobile devices. Tablet devices are now a part of the online shopping experience and retailers are taking note. Clearly, all signs point to the fact that this could be the breakout year for mobile shopping.
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We’ve written plenty of times about Shopkick, a geo-coupon system that has received funding from Kleiner Perkins, Greylock, SV Angel and others. Today, the company is revealing a number of impressive stats about its service.
Instead of checking in, as you would with a geo app like Foursquare or Gowalla, shopkick automatically recognizes when someone with the free Android or iPhone app on their phone walks into a store. Once a shopkick Signal is detected, the app delivers reward points called “kickbucks” to the user for walking into a retail store, trying on clothes, scanning a barcode and other actions. Kickbucks can then be redeemed across all partner stores for gift card rewards or for Facebook Credits. User can also receive special discounts on specific products at partners stores like Macy’s, Best Buy or Target. → Read More
We’re at that point in the startup cycle where everyone wants to be a founder and it’s easier than ever to make that desire a reality. At least it’s easier than every to raise enough money to try it out; building a real business is another matter. And paradoxically one of the threats to building a real business is the intense startup talent war we’ve written about a few times.
Between would-be CTOs and COOs taking themselves out of the hiring market to start their own company and companies like Google, Facebook, Zynga and Groupon throw mad amounts of cash to lure everyone else, finding the people essential to build more than just a clever app is the hardest its been in a decade or more.
And while location-based shopping app shopkick may not get the same ink as other location based services or have nearly as many users as Foursquare, it just landed a whale of an executive. → Read More
Let’s say you go to a store and check-in. Then what? Maybe there’s a deal. Maybe. But for many location-based services, the check-in is the end of the equation. Shopkick is pretty much the opposite.
From the beginning, they’ve shied away from the check-in. Why? Because most of them are pure BS. Either they mean nothing, or they’re fake. Retailers don’t yet get this — but then again, most of them still have no idea what a check-in is. Shopkick has been aiming to educate retailers on how to best utilize mobile devices to incentivize customers to come into their stores — and more importantly, shop in their store. And today, Shopkick is launching version 2 of their popular application. → Read More
Sleeper location-based service Shopkick is quietly amassing some impressive numbers. Its users are still small, at about 750,000 compared to Foursquare’s 5 million users, but those users are doing totally different and far more monetizable things.
Ten percent of users use the app every single day, and later today Shopkick will announce a new milestone: Users have scanned more than three million products at 250,000 locations nationwide since its August launch. Compare that to TechCrunch Disrupt finalist CheckPoints, boasting 600,000 barcode scans. → Read More
Fresh off a partnership with Target, Shopkick is bringing its geo-coupon system to Android phones with a free app. Now Android users can access in-store coupons from Best Buy, Macy’s, Target, American Eagle, Sports Authority and more.
Instead of checking in, as you would with a geo app like Foursquare or Gowalla, shopkick automatically recognizes when someone with the free shopkick app on their phone walks into a store. Once a shopkick Signal is detected, the app delivers reward points called “kickbucks” to the user for walking into a retail store. → Read More
After announcing a partnership with Best Buy a few months ago, Shopkick is debuting a new implementation of its geo-coupon system at Target today. Users can now unlock coupons via Shopkick’s app in 242 stores in the Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York City, and San Francisco/Silicon Valley markets.
Instead of checking in, as you would with a geo app like Foursquare or Gowalla, shopkick automatically recognizes when someone with the free shopkick app on their phone walks into a store. When guests enter a participating Target store, they will receive points, called “kickbucks.” Guests also can scan select product barcodes in-store to earn additional “kickbucks.” → Read More
Foursquare and Facebook Places are popularizing the location check-in. Instagram and PicPlz are perfecting the photo check-in. Is the product check-in next? Billy Chasen, the founder of barcode-scanning app Stickybits, thinks so. He’s spent the past few months pivoting his startup to focus more on brands and turn product check-ins into rewards. A major update of Stickybits is in the App Store (iTunes link), and an Android update will be ready before the end of the year. Its website also has a new design.
When Stickybits first launched at South-by-Southwest last March, people weren’t quite sure what they were supposed to do. The new app gives them a reason to scan objects because now they might unlock a reward. The first promotion will be with Ben & Jerry’s. The first 500 people to scan two pints of its Fair Trade ice cream will get a free Ben & Jerry’s T-shirt. Other product-scan promotions are in the works from Don Q Rum, Elmer’s Glue, Fiji Water, Harper Collins, Pepsi, Universal Music, Weiden & Kennedy, the Washington Capitals, and Wonderful Pistachios. → Read More
It’s a bad month to be Foursquare or Gowalla. Ten days ago, 900-pound gorilla Facebook announced Facebook Deals for Facebook Places (i,e., location-based coupons) and check-ins for third-party apps. A day later, Pew Research reported that, despite all the hype, the use of location-based services is actually declining in America, from 5% of the online population in May to 4% last month. Forget the fabled hockey stick; that’s more like a broken pencil.
Why? Because they’re not giving us any good reason to use them. Look at their web sites. Gowalla proclaims, “Discover the extraordinary in the world around you.” Foursquare says, “Unlock your city.” To which I say: “Oh, come on“ — and it seems I speak for approximately 96% (formerly 95%) of the population. I have no interest in enlisting in a virtual scavenger hunt, or unlocking merit badges — what is this, the Cub Scouts? — or becoming the narcissistic “Mayor” of my local coffee shop. Thanks for the offer, but I’m afraid I already have some semblance of a life. → Read More
Earlier, we wrote about shopkick, a company with a different take on the whole check-in revolution as it relates to retail. But it’s one thing to read about it, it’s another to see it. That’s exactly why shopkick invited several members of the press to a Best Buy in San Francisco this morning to see the app in action.
As you can see in the full 15-minute walk-through video below, the execution is impressive. The minute you enter a Best Buy location, your phone recognizes it and you get points and a message that there are deals available at this location. You can also use it to scan items and get more points and other potential deals. → Read More
Yesterday, we wrote about Future Checkin, a third-party app that uses Foursquare’s API to check you in to a location without you having to actually hit any buttons to check-in. In fact, you can keep your phone in your pocket and it will work. Today, shopkick is teaming up with Best Buys around the U.S. to offer something similar. But with an important twist: without doing anything, you are rewarded for walking into retail stores. And you can’t fake a check-in with their method.
“This is the intersection of the mobile and the physical world,” shopkick co-founder Cyriac Roeding says. “You turn an offline store into an interactive experience,” he continues.
All of this works by way of a mobile application. The app is able to tell when you walk into a store (Best Buy, in this case) — and where you are in the store (that’s the future plan anyway, but shopkick demoed it today). But the key is that the user is in the store — not in the parking lot or simply close by. This works because “shopkick Signal” technology is installed in the retail stores. This isn’t about GPS. → Read More
Shopkick, a startup that’s focused on bridging the real world shopping experience with mobile, just closed a rather large $15 million round of funding from Greylock Partners. Partner Reid Hoffman, who is also an individual investor in the company, is already on the board of directors.
The company had previously raised $5 million from Hoffman and Kleiner Perkins Kaufield & Byers. Kleiner participated in this round of financing as well. → Read More
In terms of location data, few get more than Skyhook Wireless. The positioning technology is in use in tens of millions of devices around the globe, including, notably, on every iPhone. And now the company has a simple way for third-parties to tap into that data in a useful way.
SpotRank gives developers access to hundreds of million of anonymous location entry points put into the Skyhook system. In fact, there are some 500 million points (100 meter “spots”) at the service’s launch. With this massive amount of data, developers can do things such as predict what locations will be hot on which nights, or predict traffic patterns. They have so much data because it’s not based around things like check-ins, which are hot right now on the consumer side of location, but rather everytime a device needs location for anything. → Read More
Last night, we wrote about a CauseWorld teaming up with TechCrunch to provide double karma points during the SXSW festival starting today in Austin, Texas. These points, obtained through checking-in at various locations, can be used to donate to charities through big brands that support the app. It’s a great feature, and we hope you’ll use it in Austin. What we didn’t talk too much about is the app itself that enables it, CauseWorld, which just released a new version of its iPhone app in the App Store.
We first covered the app back in December, but now it has been significantly upgraded. One of the core ideas behind the app has always been the intersection of the mobile and physical world (something I’ve thought a lot about as well). A new feature bridges the gap a bit more as you can now scan barcodes on individual items with your iPhone to earn extra karma points. Proctor & Gamble are the ones sponsoring these points on different products they make. It’s a good idea, because even if you choose not to buy the item, it forces you to pick it up and look at it a bit. → Read More
There are no shortage of location-based services launching this week at SXSW in Austin, Texas. Many of them allow you to “check-in” places to let others know you are there. So how do you differentiate between then and decide which to use? Well, here’s one good way.
CauseWorld, is a free iPhone and Android app that lets you check-in places, but it has an added real-world bonus: big brands give money to charity when you do so. And this week at SXSW, CauseWorld is teaming up with TechCrunch to offer double point (which they aptly call “karma”) when you check in to one of over 50 venues around Austin (I’ll paste the full list at the bottom of the post), including the Austin Convention Center (where SXSW is held). → Read More
CauseWorld, a mobile app that lets users check in to retail shops for credits that can be donated to charity, is clearly on a roll. The app first launched in December as “the first mobile application that let’s you do good deeds simply for walking into a store.”
CauseWorld app users earn “karma points” when they walk into stores and check in with their cell phone. No purchase is required at any store, and karma points can be redeemed nine predefined good causes. Big brands like Kraft Foods and Citi (both are on board) then turn the karmas into real dollar donations to those causes. Food for poor families, water in Sudan, trees in the Amazon, etc. are examples of the causes.
The company has now donated about half of the original $500,000 donated by Kraft and Citi for the test period. And these brands seem to be happy. CauseWorld has been downloaded more than 300,000 times, probably putting it on par with location based check in networks like FourSquare. Last week Proctor and Gamble said it will give users karma points for scanning the bar codes of 27 products, like toothpaste or face cream. And now Citi will announce that it is expanding it’s support of CauseWorld. It’s total contribution is now at $700,000. → Read More
CauseWorld (iTunes link), an iPhone app from Shopkick, is off to a strong start. They first launched in December, and they quickly got the coveted featured spot on the iTunes app store. Yesterday, they started letting users donate to the American Red Cross for Haiti relief.
The application gives users karma points for checking in to certain retail stores. Those karma points can then be converted into donations to various charities and other good causes (water in Sudan, food for the poor, trees in the Amazon, etc.). Big brands supply the cash for donations (and get lots of advertising exposure). Users decide how that money gets spent. see our original launch post for more details. → Read More
