Getting the attention of customers has always been one of the biggest challenges for retailers. As technology improves, they are having to find new ways to put eyes on their stores.
Historically, retailers have been able to accomplish this through coupons, rebates, promotions and rewards, according to Brad Godwin, SVP head of CPG/retail partnerships at Denver-based Shopkick, a Trax company.
Shopkick is a third-party program that rewards consumers for normal shopping habits while encouraging in-store purchases. Shopkick users gain points or “kicks” by visiting and shopping. They can redeem those kicks for gift cards, Godwin said. This is a win-win for the retailers and consumers.
“We know that 85 percent of shopping is happening in physical stores. People want to go to a store. They want to interact with brands,” he said. “What we do is highlight those stores. We tell our users, ‘Hey, if you go to this store today, just for walking into the store … you get rewarded. Retailers really love that.”
Customers can get these rewards, regardless of whether the merchant is partnered with Shopkick.
“Some of our retail partners are paying us to drive traffic into their stores and others, we’re paying. Just because we want our users to find rewarding experiences going there. Then, once they get in-store, we gamify retail,” Godwin said.
Shopkick aims to turn the shopping experience into a scavenger hunt. The Shopkick app entices shoppers to find a product, scan the barcode and get rewarded.
“A lot of brands, they come to us to get their kicks. [Consumers] can get … five-10 kicks if you walk in the store, 20 kicks if you go find this specific item … and then maybe 500 kicks if you buy the item. We can drive trial,” Godwin said.
Shopkick brings an omnichannel way for products to promote themselves. After getting the customer’s attention using the app, businesses can continue to interact with the consumer. For grocery retail, this typically comes in the form of recipe videos.
“A lot of food manufacturers want to show recipe content on the shelf. Retailers are not going to let them put up an aisle violator like they used to,” Godwin explained. “So, when the shopper goes and scans the product, it’ll pop up in the app, ‘Hey, do you want to watch a video of how you can make this at home?’
“And if you watch the video, you get 10 more kicks. Everything is like digital breadcrumbs along the shopper journey. We’re just trying to make something that might be normally pretty mundane – going to buy groceries – a little bit more fun for people.”
Shopkick works alongside retailers’ goals to drive sales.
“We work with Ulta Beauty as a retailer,” Godwin said. “We’re working with their marketing team every month to be able to go, ‘What are things you’re highlighting? What are you doing in your email strategy?’
“All the marketing is the same things we’re highlighting within the app. We’re working with the retailer to make sure we’re communicating – to their audience, to our audience and other incremental audiences – what the value is.”
The program has been around for a decade, according to Godwin. It began with hardware that was installed in stores known as “beacons.” Using GPS technology, those beacons would ping Shopkick users’ devices to give them rewards.
“We don’t have retailers have anything physical anymore,” Godwin said with a laugh.
Shopkick has partnered with larger organizations in the past. But at Groceryshop 2023 in Las Vegas – where this interview was conducted by Shelby Publishing’s EVP Bob Reeves – the company met with IGA.
“Independent grocers need this in their toolkit … even the big guys, their last earnings [reports] said the same the same thing: traffic is down. They need to find new ways to get shoppers excited to go,” Godwin said.
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