It Works! Shopkick Delivers on its Promise of Driving Foot Traffic to Stores

PALO ALTO, Calif., Dec. 14, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Sports Authority, the nation's premier full-line sporting goods retailer, was one of shopkick's inaugural partners when the location-based shopping app launched this summer, promising to deliver retailers' most desired prize: more foot traffic to their stores.  

Four months after kicking off the partnership, the results are in.

"Sports Authority is committed to offering our customers the best value and reaching them with the latest technology. shopkick provides a unique technology that makes location-based rewards economically feasible for the first time, has unparalleled team expertise, and with the list of blue chip retailers we joined as launch partners, we were convinced to experiment with the first location-based shopping app in the market," said Jeff Schumacher, Chief Marketing Officer of Sports Authority. "We had 50% to 70% more shoppers walk into the store with shopkick when we increased the rewards for walking in. There is a direct and measurable correlation. shopkick's model works."

Sports Authority has run several tests in the months since launch, to answer the question: If consumers get more rewards points just for walking, will more consumers walk in?  So Sports Authority doubled and even tripled the number of "kickbucks" awarded to shoppers simply for walking into participating stores. The kickbucks – the cross-retailer currency of shopkick – did as intended: as the reward amount increased, more consumers walked into the store with the shopkick app, in some cases up to seventy percent more.

"We knew we'd be able to increase foot traffic for retail partners, by turning store locations into interactive worlds full of rewards and fun," said Cyriac Roeding, CEO and co-founder of shopkick, Inc. "But what we didn't know is that the impact would be so fast – and so dramatic. It's very encouraging to see shoppers responding to the app even more enthusiastically than we hoped."

The shopkick app detects a shopkick Signal, emitted from a patent-pending device, located in each participating store, to deliver kickbucks to each user. kickbucks can be collected and redeemed across all partner stores for in-store gift card rewards or discounts at top retail stores, or song downloads, or movie tickets and hotel vouchers, Facebook Credits to play games online, donations to 30 different causes and charities and more. And, because the detection occurs on the user's mobile device, the privacy of presence information is completely under the user's control.

For each Sports Authority promotion, they increased kickbucks awarded (2x or 3x) to see how higher rewards impact walk-ins. Walk-ins measure the actual presence of shoppers in a participating store, vs. the proximity-based measurement delivered by GPS-based check-ins. With each promotion, the impact on walk-ins increased dramatically – even as baseline check-ins grew organically – delivering 50 to 70 percent increase in walk-ins.

The shopkick app also lets users:

• Get even more kickbucks for scanning and learning about products and services
• Receive special offers, for example, a discount on specific products at participating retailers or double the kickbucks for check-in during promotional periods
• Earn kickbucks from every retailer and redeem them at any partner retailer

Currently more than 1,100 individual stores across multiple retailers and 100 of the country's largest malls have fully deployed shopkick's technology. In addition, at more than 230,000 other stores across America, shopkick offers smaller rewards for "checking-in" and scanning products from leading brands, including Kraft Foods and Procter & Gamble.

The shopkick app is available for free on the iPhone and on Android. Apple users can download it from the App Store or at http://itunes.apple.com/app/id383298204 and on the Android Market at www.shopkick.com/download.

About shopkick (www.shopkick.com)

shopkick is a new Palo Alto-based startup funded by Kleiner Perkins's iFund, Greylock Partners and Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, and investor in Facebook and Zynga. shopkick, Inc. brings the power of the mobile internet to the retail experience. shopkick launched its mobile application CauseWorld in the United States in December 2009, in partnership with Citi, Kraft Foods and Procter & Gamble, which became the fastest-growing location-based retail app in the App Store within weeks. In August 2010, shopkick launched its flagship service by the same name, the first mobile application that hands rewards and offers to consumers simply for walking into stores and malls. With blue-chip partnerships including American Eagle, Best Buy, Macy's, Sports Authority, Target, Wet Seal and Simon Property Group, the largest mall operator in the United States.

About Sports Authority (www.sportsauthority.com)

The Sports Authority is staffed with experts in all areas of sports and fitness related topics, and strives to be the ultimate "authority," both on and off the field. Whether in the game or cheering from the sidelines, The Sports Authority is the leading destination for consumers to fulfill their own sports equipment needs, as well as find their favorite team's apparel. The Sports Authority operates 462 stores in 45 states, and employs more than 15,000 associates nationwide. It also operates stores in Japan under a partnership with AEON Co., Ltd. The company's e-commerce website is located at www.sportsauthority.com.

SOURCE shopkick