It's Love! shopkick Users Check In 100 Million Times in Six Months

PALO ALTO, Calif., Feb. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- shopkick, the location-based shopping app that rewards shoppers simply for visiting stores, celebrates Valentine's Day by saying 'I Love You' back to its more than 750,000 users across America who have shown their devotion by collectively checking in to businesses nationwide more than 100 million times since the app launched in August 2010.  When they check-in, users earn shopkick rewards in the currency of "kickbucks," the first cross-retailer rewards program.

"This massive growth and engagement is astounding us.  We reached the 100 million check-ins and 750,000 user base milestones within less than six months; faster than any other new location-based shopping app.  And last week, we announced 3 million product scans, so we thought Valentine's Day would be good day to say 'We love you' to our users.  And yes we're happy to be pretty cheesy for a day," said shopkick Co-Founder and CEO, Cyriac Roeding. "We designed the product to be both valuable AND entertaining. Looks like it works!"

Even more important than the check-in volume are the thousands of people physically walking into partner stores every day with the shopkick app. Users earn many more kickbucks for the walk-ins, which detects a user's actual presence in a store, vs. these check-ins, which are GPS-based, and can only communicate that a user is in the vicinity, i.e. within a block or two, of the selected store. shopkick is the first company worldwide with scalable technology to make rewards for actual walk-ins possible.

"The economic value of a walk-in is 200 times the value of a check-in, according to our data," said Roeding.

Users simply open the shopkick application to reveal what nearby retailers offer a large number of kickbucks for walking in, where to earn a few for checking-in, and what partner brand products from Kraft Foods, HP, Procter & Gamble, and Unilever are available to scan for additional kickbucks.

Kickbucks are awarded for checking in to more than 3 million businesses across the nation, with high-value walk-in rewards available at the more than 1,100 retail and 100 mall locations that makeup shopkick's Retail Partner Network. Walk-in rewards currently available in 18 markets, at select Target, Best Buy, Macy's, American Eagle Outfitters, Sports Authority, Crate and Barrel, Wet Seal, and Simon Property Group mall properties.

In order to reward consumers for actual measurable walk-ins, the shopkick app, combined, the shopkick Signal – an inaudible sound emitted from a patent-pending device located in each participating retailer – verifies a user is in-store, and then awards kickbucks. This assures retailers that the marketing dollars input to the shopkick program are being spent to reward customers who are actually present within their store, something not possible with traditional location-based applications because they rely on GPS technology that has an error radius of 50-1,000 yards on mobile phones. And, because the detection occurs on the user's mobile device, the privacy of presence information is completely under the user's control.

Kickbucks earned can be redeemed for in-store gift cards, song downloads, movie tickets, hotel vouchers, Facebook Credits to play games online, donations to 30 different causes and charities and more.

Launched in August 2010, shopkick has been downloaded more than 750,000 times, with at least ten percent of users active in the app every day, and 40 percent per month.  The shopkick App is available for free on the iPhone from the App Store at www.itunes.com/appstore/ and on Android Market at http://shopkick.com/android.html.

About shopkick (www.shopkick.com)

Shopkick, Inc. is a 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 brings the power of smartphones to the physical world shopping experience. In August 2010, shopkick launched the first mobile application that hands rewards and offers to consumers simply for walking into stores and malls through a groundbreaking new location technology called 'shopkick Signal', and that provides exclusive deals at shopkick's national retail partners. Shopkick's growing retail partner alliance includes Best Buy, Macy's, Target, American Eagle, Crate & Barrel, Sports Authority, Wet Seal, and Simon Malls.  shopkick grew to 750,000 users and 1 million check-ins per day within five months. It is the only 100% performance-based marketing platform in the physical retail world, with measurable foot traffic and transactions at stores.  It was named the top retail app by Wall Street Journal's Top 10 Apps of 2010, and a Top 10 App to Watch in 2011 by Mashable. shopkick has been covered continuously by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, ABC, NBC, CNBC, Fox, CNN, TechCrunch, Business Insider and most other major news outlets. The free shopkick app is available for the iPhone and Android.

SOURCE shopkick