American Eagle Outfitters and Shopkick Announce 100-Store Trial of New shopBeacon™ Technology

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Jan. 16, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- American Eagle Outfitters and Shopkick, the most widely used real-world shopping app, today announced plans to launch shopBeacon^TM in 100 top-performing American Eagle Outfitters and Aerie stores across the country. Shopkick's shopBeacon is the first Apple iBeacon-based presence signal for retailers. When this trial goes live next month, it is anticipated to be the most widely deployed trial in the nation.

"AEO has always been an early adopter of cutting edge technology, which is why we are partnering with Shopkick once again, in order to provide our customers with the best mobile shopping experience available today," said Joe Megibow, Senior Vice President of Omni-Channel eCommerce at American Eagle Outfitters. "Shopkick first launched its app in our Times Square flagship store. Now with shopBeacon, we can deliver a plug and play solution that works to personalize our customers' shopping experience in an impactful and powerful way."

As shoppers enter an American Eagle Outfitters store, shopBeacon will welcome and show them location-specific rewards, deals, discounts and product recommendations – without them even having to remember to open the app.  It can also tie at-home browsing behavior to in-store benefits; if the customer "likes" a specific product online, if they so choose, shopBeacon can remind them where in the American Eagle Outfitters store that product is sold. Even better, in the future, it can also deliver department-specific offers throughout the store – so must-have skinnies show up at the most useful time: in the jeans department.

"American Eagle Outfitters' shoppers are tech-savvy, social and love their smartphones," said Cyriac Roeding, CEO and Co-Founder of shopkick. "shopBeacon is able to connect to this new generation of shoppers as a trusted companion, by reminding opted-in users to open the shopkick app at the entrance of the store, and further personalize their shopping experience with alerts and high-value rewards.  It is helpful and fun for both the shopper and the store."

American Eagle Outfitters is the first partner to deploy shopBeacon to 100 locations across the country, including New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Boston, and San Francisco, chosen based on high-level traction with shopkick. By working with the 100 stores that have the highest traffic across the U.S., this trial is designed to deliver the most data and learning on how consumers enjoy shopBeacon. These stores join Macy's installations in its San Francisco and New York flagship stores, which went live just before Black Friday 2013, and were the first live installations of any iBeacon/BLE technology at any large retailer worldwide.

To install shopBeacon, a retailer simply sticks the device on a wall or other flat surface. Each shopBeacon has a battery life of five years. The shopkick software developer kit (SDK) also makes it easy to customize and further personalize the ways brands and retailers interact with shoppers through their own store apps using shopBeacon.

Equally important, shopkick has built sophisticated proprietary technology on top of the iBeacon protocol into its shopBeacon, to make the scalability, security and location accuracy possible that are required for a commercially feasible retail solution. 

Shopkick delivers high-value rewards, in a currency called "kicks," to shoppers for a variety of actions they take as they go about shopping: being present in stores, browsing and interacting with products, and purchasing at participating retail stores as well as right within the app. Shoppers can redeem kicks to treat themselves with store gift cards, a free coffee or dinner, handbags, song downloads, movie tickets, donations to charity and more.

shopkick is free on the iPhone from the App Store at www.itunes.com/appstore/ and for Android from Google Play at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shopkick.app.

About shopkick, Inc.
The shopkick app is the ultimate shopping companion that inspires, organizes and rewards. At home or on the go, browse through themed "books" to be inspired by the latest fashion trends or products often hidden in the aisles and racks of popular stores. "Like" items anywhere you want, to be reminded next time you visit a store where they're sold. Connect with others of similar taste to discover and share coveted items. All this while earning rewards along the way for everyday shopping actions like store visits, picking up products at stores, and purchases.

In 2013, Nielsen rated shopkick the most widely and often used real-world shopping app, ahead of any physical retailers' apps. Shopkick's growing Partner Alliance includes American Eagle Outfitters, Best Buy, Crate and Barrel, JCPenney, Macy's, MasterCard, Old Navy, Simon Property Group, Sony, The Sports Authority, Target, Visa, Procter & Gamble, Kraft Foods, Revlon, Unilever, Pepsi, Levi's, HP and more. The Redwood City-based startup is funded by Kleiner Perkins' iFund, Greylock Partners and Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and investor in Facebook. The World Economic Forum (WEF) named shopkick a Technology Pioneer 2013, an honor previously given to Google, Twitter, and Wikipedia.

About American Eagle Outfitters, Inc.
American Eagle Outfitters, Inc. (NYSE: AEO) is a leading global specialty retailer offering high-quality, on-trend clothing, accessories and personal care products at affordable prices under its American Eagle Outfitters® and Aerie® brands. The company operates more than 1,000 stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico, China, and Hong Kong, and ships to 81 countries worldwide through its websites. American Eagle Outfitters and Aerie merchandise also is available at 66 licensed international franchise stores in 12 countries. For more information, please visit www.ae.com.

Media Contact:
Grayling for shopkick
Alia Dudum
415.593.1400
[email protected]

SOURCE shopkick, Inc.