Shopkick, l'application qui pourrait bien révolutionner le commerce

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Lors d'un récent voyage à San Francisco, avec la délégation française de Ubifrance, nous avons assisté à la mi-octobre à une présentation de Shopkick, lancée en juin 2010 aux Etats-Unis.

Shopkick est une application révolutionnaire (pour le moment sur iPhone) qui permet par la géolocalisation en s'identifiant de recevoir des messages personnalisés sur son téléphone mobile pendant son parcours de shopping.

Les messages passent bien sûr sur l'écran du mobile et aussi par l'intermédiaire d'un signal sonore (faible) qui vous permet de détecter une promotion personnalisée quand vous passez à côté.

Dans un premier temps, près de 600 magasins et 100 centres commerciaux sont équipés et participent à l'aventure.

Pour les principales enseignes américaines, il s'agit de Macy's, American Eagle, Best Buy, Sports Authority et Simon Malls qui gère un parc impressionnant de centres commerciaux.

Voici (transmise par Shopkick) la devanture de American Eagle à New York Times Square pour le lancement de Shopkick :

La promesse est excessivement simple : just walk in and collect, qu'on peut traduire par marchez et collectez ou gagnez. Dès que vous rentrez dans un magasin, vous gagnez des points exemple ci-dessous chez Macy's.

Je trouve cette application très intéressante car elle part du mobile qu'on a toujours ou presque sur soi et largement multicanal et change le cadencement de la promo qui peut se faire réellement en temps réel et en instantané. C'est un concentré de technologie, de mobile, de géolocalisation, de personnalisation, de data...Bref, un résumé des nouvelles possibilités technologiques à la disposition des enseignes.

Shopkick est aussi une nouvelle arme d'animation des magasins, comme le montre cette affiche à l'entrée d'un magasin Best Buy que j'ai visité à San Francisco :

Pour en savoir plus sur Shopkick

Le CEO et fondateur s'appelle Cyriac Roeding et est originaire d'Allemagne, nul doute que si le déploiement est réussi aux Etats-Unis, Shopkick arrivera avec sons avoir-faire et des versions européennes.

Pour en savoir plus, maintenant voici quelques éléments d'informations supplémentaires (en anglais) sous forme de questions réponses, suite à mes échanges avec Meri Morris qui est en charge des RP pour Shopkick :

As co-founder, take me through how Shopkick was thought of. Were you guys sitting around one day looking at the marketplace and found an obvious hole?
For ten years, I had been looking for an idea in mobile that I thought has the potential to become a large company. I first caught my “mobile virus” when I lived in Tokyo in 1994. In 1999, I co-founded a mobile advertising company in Europe, when cell phones still had green screens. Most recently, I was an entrepreneur in residence at Kleiner Perkins, the VC fund behind Google and Amazon, looking for the next big thing in mobile. We were looking for ideas that were TRULY mobile, in other words, that wouldn’t make any sense without a cell phone. One of the most “truly mobile” use cases:  Mobile in the physical world. The cell phone is the only interactive medium consumers carry with them in offline, physical environments.  And where do consumers really need better information and interactive services in the physical world? When they are out shopping. Mobile meets retail. The mobile phone can turn retail stores into interactive worlds – where shoppers get offers, rewards, product information right when they are entering a store.
 

How will this affect retailers and shoppers?

Shoppers will get rewards just for visiting stores, and for scanning the barcodes of specific items, and they receive special offers. In addition, their shopping experience will be enhanced with fun social elements, but only if they want to participate in that.  And retailers will hopefully get the most valuable thing for brick-and-mortar retailers: foot traffic.

What challenges does shopkick address for retailers such as American Eagle, Best Buy, Macy’s and The Sports Authority?

The no. 1 challenge for every physical retailer is: foot traffic.  Conversion rates in the physical world are actually very good (20-95%, depending on the category of retail); online, it is 0.5%-3%.  So getting people in the door is the no. 1 purpose.  If that is the case, then why does nobody every reward anyone for visiting a store?  That’s what shopkick does for the first time.  It requires the verification that you are actually at the store; otherwise you are rewarding consumers for being in the parking lot, or next door at another store. :)  That is where the shopkick Signal comes into play.  In addition, shopkick is the first platform that offers personalization of offers and experiences with higher relevance for consumers on a mass scale, and the first full “closing the sales loop” all the way to the Point of Sale.  And of course, in terms of rewarding customers, shopkick is the first program that gives customers rewards and offers just for walking into stores. 

While I know how it is different, I like to get this answer in your words. Please explain how Shopkick is different than Foursquare and similar services. How tired are you of this question?
There are two key points: First, shopkick is a location-based shopping app, it is not a location-based social app.  shopkick is focused on empowering consumers and retailers by making their real world shopping experience an interactive one with awesome rewards, great offers, and more fun.  Dramatically improving the shopping experience for consumers is what shopkick is focused on at its very heart.  Secondly, shopkick can actually reward consumers for walking into stores – not just for shopping, but simply for walking in.  That is not possible with GPS, because it has an error radius of 50-1,000 yards on mobile phones.  And it is hard to imagine retailers wanting to reward consumers for being in the parking lot, or worse, for being next door at another store.  Unfortunately, 95% of all check-ins that have incentives are fake.  So we developed a new technology, the shopkick Signal. It solves the big issue no other location-based technology can: to define whether consumers are actually PRESENT vs. just in the vicinity a block or two away – but all under 100% control of the user. And that makes location-based rewards economically feasible for the first time. The shopkick Signal is basically like GPS on steroids. It is an inexpensive device, installed in partner stores, that emits an inaudible signal that smart phones can pick up through their microphone. And all this is 100% opt-in for the consumer, meaning nothing detects them, the user’s phone detects the shopkick Signal and only if the app is open. We filed patents for it.  Retailers and other businesses can now offer users real value: reward points called kickbucks for walking in and scanning products that can be earned everywhere and spent everywhere, special offers, entertainment and so on.