July 19, 2012
Macy’s Customers to Get Their Kicks in New Mobile Program
Macy’s is going national with a rollout of the shopkick mobile rewards program. Customers can earn rewards and obtain shopkick’s "kicks" currency simply by walking into any of the 800+ Macy’s across the country.
"We’re dedicated to being an omnichannel innovator, so our customers can always benefit from the latest and greatest technology. We were one of shopkick’s inaugural partners, initially offering this innovative application in select markets in 2010," said Martine Reardon, Macy’s chief marketing officer, in a statement. "With this national rollout less than two years later, we are continuing to bolster mobile efforts that enhance the shopping experience in our stores while creating an immediate and personal interaction with our customers."
"Seventy percent of the U.S. population has visited a Macy’s store," Doug Galen, chief revenue officer of shopkick, told Mobile Commerce Daily. 
"People who go to shop at Macy’s end up patronizing neighboring retailers as well. It’s a ripple effect. In addition to the value Macy’s gets from shopkick, nearby retailers offering rewards to shoppers through shopkick will benefit from increased foot traffic and sales as well."
Macy’s is using its current audio system through Mood Media Corporation to activate the shopkick signal in stores.
"We’ve developed a technique that requires little more than approval from the retailer and then it can be live with shopkick in no time," said Mark Elfenbein, chief business development officer, Mood Media, in a statement.
The Macy’s news comes on top of another big deal for shopkick last month. MasterCard and shopkick announced a partnership allowing credit card holders to link accounts to shopkick to earn rewards with qualifying purchases.
Shopkick’s other retail partners include American Eagle, Best Buy, Crate & Barrel, Old Navy, Sports Authority, Target, Toys "R" Us, as well as major consumers brands such as Clorox, Colgate, Disney, HP, Intel, P&G and Unilever.
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Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions: How effective are programs such as shopkick in driving traffic to retail stores? What must retailers do to make sure that traffic translates into sales?
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For all the hand-wringing about showrooming, this is a perfect example of how to turn location-based smartphone technology to a retailer’s advantage. It’s noteworthy that Best Buy and Target (two of the biggest complainers about showrooming) are on board with Shopkick, along with Macy’s.
Shopkick’s challenge is to deal with the likely proliferation of competing apps aligned with other stores — it doesn’t need to turn into another Groupon.
These kinds of programs will only get more effective as shopping behavior shifts to “anytime, every time” and the technology and content keeps consumers engaged. The key to increasing sales is understand when and where the shopper is most receptive to messaging and offers. The data companies like Macy’s are collecting and then analyzing will provide those insights and the process will get iteratively better.
Shopkick is a great example of an approach that satisfies the “what’s in it for me” litmus test. Customer loyalty and engagement technologies deployed by retailers have to either:
A. Differentiate the experience (versus competition)
and/or
B. Provide offers and rewards that are meaningful.
First of all, I applaud the effort. Instead of sitting around bemoaning the impact of technology on their store business, retail operators need to imagine ways to put the technology to work for their stores. Shopkick seems to be a way to do this but I am not sure how effective it is. I guess the question that comes to mind is over whether the promise of some reward points is incentive enough to get me out in the heat wave we have been suffering in the East (and elsewhere).
I don’t think an economical number of points could get me out to the stores if I was not already planning to go there. If that is the case, then what has the retailer accomplished with the offer? Have they just given away margin to promotional discounts without any increase in sales?
Now what may happen is that promotions offered during my planned visit to the store will trigger the purchase of additional items. These incremental sales are the opportunity and I would push for manufacturer support because the retailer is exposing their customer to the manufacturer’s product. Customers could end up purchasing items or categories they have not tried before while already in the store.
To answer the question of how effective the program is, one needs to dig into the data. The only true way to measure is by linking the Shopkick user to a specific loyalty card, so that the consumer’s purchase history can be tracked from before they began using Shopkick, and the true trendlines can be determined on a shopper-by-shopper basis.
Also, linking to the loyalty card will allow for brands to participate more in funding rewards and discounts, because the consumer’s actual brand purchases can be tracked (as opposed to the MasterCard link, which only allows tracking of purchases at the total basket level).
Still, I think Shopkick has done as good a job as anyone of explicitly rewarding shoppers for coming into stores and interacting with displays or merchandise. Once they can prove the associated sales impact, they will have the complete package.
Shopkick has built a nice check-in/rewards system that uses a clever technology that is portable across retail brands. The portability is the double-edged sword for retailers. For some, leveraging shopping trips to nearby shopkick participants is a good thing. For others (possibly like Macy’s) they are diluting their own brand and rewards system by building up the shopkick brand.
Foursquare has had to grow the features in its app because after a while, checking and accumulating points loses its luster. The same danger exists in a shopkick or retail branded check-in app, even if check-in is passive. After the novelty period ends, shoppers will begin to look at the WIFM (what’s in it for me) in terms of what points really do for them. If there’s a real incentive, they will continue to participate. If not, it will be just one of a zillion location based ad platforms drowning them in meaningless offers. The underlying metrics and the ability to discern what they really mean, all the way through the purchase and repeat purchase cycles, are especially crucial.
Shopkick continues to be a leader in inventing in-store mobile experiences for shoppers. My problem is that by delivering them through a Shopkick branded app, instead of a Macy’s one, it fragments the customer experience. There is a Macy’s branded app that gives shoppers access to their accounts, online shopping cart, and some special deals. There is the Shopkick app which gives customers access to different set of deals. A sign on the front door of the store invites me to Like them on Facebook, which I can do from any of their mobile apps. If I’m a FourSquare user (or Yelp, or whatever), I have to use a different app.
If I want to search for a product in the store, I can go to m.macys.com for a mobile optimized website with in-store inventory look-up. Oh but the “Mobile” version of the website is done by a third party and has different URLs than the desktop website, so when I e-mail the product page to a friend (or sync the bookmark with my desktop browser) they are going to be looking at a mobile optimized page on their desktop browser.
A consumer could feel as if they should have a dedicated smartphone just for mobile tools they might use while in a Macy’s store. It’s a random collection of experiences. Where is the customer experience strategy? What does Macy’s want to happen when I visit there store?
Macy’s could easily aggregate most of all of those experiences on their own mobile app and/or mobile optimized website. At the very least they could edit their mobile messaging hierarchy to emphasize which option they think will serve me best.
I don’t know if it will drive incremental visits, but I do think it’s a nice way to bridge the mobile experience with the in-store shopping experience. I also thought the technology of using the sound system makes it so much easier for retailers to execute.
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For all the hand-wringing about showrooming, this is a perfect example of how to turn location-based smartphone technology to a retailer’s advantage. It’s noteworthy that Best Buy and Target (two of the biggest complainers about showrooming) are on board with Shopkick, along with Macy’s.
Shopkick’s challenge is to deal with the likely proliferation of competing apps aligned with other stores — it doesn’t need to turn into another Groupon.
These kinds of programs will only get more effective as shopping behavior shifts to “anytime, every time” and the technology and content keeps consumers engaged. The key to increasing sales is understand when and where the shopper is most receptive to messaging and offers. The data companies like Macy’s are collecting and then analyzing will provide those insights and the process will get iteratively better.
Shopkick is a great example of an approach that satisfies the “what’s in it for me” litmus test. Customer loyalty and engagement technologies deployed by retailers have to either:
A. Differentiate the experience (versus competition)
and/or
B. Provide offers and rewards that are meaningful.
First of all, I applaud the effort. Instead of sitting around bemoaning the impact of technology on their store business, retail operators need to imagine ways to put the technology to work for their stores. Shopkick seems to be a way to do this but I am not sure how effective it is. I guess the question that comes to mind is over whether the promise of some reward points is incentive enough to get me out in the heat wave we have been suffering in the East (and elsewhere).
I don’t think an economical number of points could get me out to the stores if I was not already planning to go there. If that is the case, then what has the retailer accomplished with the offer? Have they just given away margin to promotional discounts without any increase in sales?
Now what may happen is that promotions offered during my planned visit to the store will trigger the purchase of additional items. These incremental sales are the opportunity and I would push for manufacturer support because the retailer is exposing their customer to the manufacturer’s product. Customers could end up purchasing items or categories they have not tried before while already in the store.
To answer the question of how effective the program is, one needs to dig into the data. The only true way to measure is by linking the Shopkick user to a specific loyalty card, so that the consumer’s purchase history can be tracked from before they began using Shopkick, and the true trendlines can be determined on a shopper-by-shopper basis.
Also, linking to the loyalty card will allow for brands to participate more in funding rewards and discounts, because the consumer’s actual brand purchases can be tracked (as opposed to the MasterCard link, which only allows tracking of purchases at the total basket level).
Still, I think Shopkick has done as good a job as anyone of explicitly rewarding shoppers for coming into stores and interacting with displays or merchandise. Once they can prove the associated sales impact, they will have the complete package.
Shopkick has built a nice check-in/rewards system that uses a clever technology that is portable across retail brands. The portability is the double-edged sword for retailers. For some, leveraging shopping trips to nearby shopkick participants is a good thing. For others (possibly like Macy’s) they are diluting their own brand and rewards system by building up the shopkick brand.
Foursquare has had to grow the features in its app because after a while, checking and accumulating points loses its luster. The same danger exists in a shopkick or retail branded check-in app, even if check-in is passive. After the novelty period ends, shoppers will begin to look at the WIFM (what’s in it for me) in terms of what points really do for them. If there’s a real incentive, they will continue to participate. If not, it will be just one of a zillion location based ad platforms drowning them in meaningless offers. The underlying metrics and the ability to discern what they really mean, all the way through the purchase and repeat purchase cycles, are especially crucial.
Shopkick continues to be a leader in inventing in-store mobile experiences for shoppers. My problem is that by delivering them through a Shopkick branded app, instead of a Macy’s one, it fragments the customer experience. There is a Macy’s branded app that gives shoppers access to their accounts, online shopping cart, and some special deals. There is the Shopkick app which gives customers access to different set of deals. A sign on the front door of the store invites me to Like them on Facebook, which I can do from any of their mobile apps. If I’m a FourSquare user (or Yelp, or whatever), I have to use a different app.
If I want to search for a product in the store, I can go to m.macys.com for a mobile optimized website with in-store inventory look-up. Oh but the “Mobile” version of the website is done by a third party and has different URLs than the desktop website, so when I e-mail the product page to a friend (or sync the bookmark with my desktop browser) they are going to be looking at a mobile optimized page on their desktop browser.
A consumer could feel as if they should have a dedicated smartphone just for mobile tools they might use while in a Macy’s store. It’s a random collection of experiences. Where is the customer experience strategy? What does Macy’s want to happen when I visit there store?
Macy’s could easily aggregate most of all of those experiences on their own mobile app and/or mobile optimized website. At the very least they could edit their mobile messaging hierarchy to emphasize which option they think will serve me best.
I don’t know if it will drive incremental visits, but I do think it’s a nice way to bridge the mobile experience with the in-store shopping experience. I also thought the technology of using the sound system makes it so much easier for retailers to execute.