Mall REIT Simon Property Group (NYSE: SPG) has partnered with a mobile technology developer to create a new smartphone application that will help customers take advantage of incentives and rewards.
Launched in 25 malls in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco, shopkick, the name of both the company and the mobile app, recognizes when the owner of a phone with the application installed on it enters a Simon property, as well as each individual partner retailer in the mall. Customers can then earn reward credits that can be redeemed online. Additionally, consumers can gain credits that can be put toward discounts and gift cards at participating locations by scanning items with their phone or by ‘checking in’ at participating locations.
“We feel it has a great deal of applicability across all demographics and age groups,” said Les Morris, spokesperson for Simon. “Everybody likes discounts and likes being rewarded for walking into a store.”
While currently only available for the iPhone, Morris explained that shopkick is planning on making the application available for multiple mobile devices in the coming months.
In addition to Simon, shopkick has partnerships with retailers such as Best Buy, American Eagle and Sports Authority.
Morris said that Simon had been searching for a partnership in the mobile commerce space for over a year. It wasn’t just the technology that shopkick had developed that caught Simon’s eye, according to Morris.
“shopkick stood out to us because their concept is very much retail-focused, as opposed to social media focus with a retail component added onto it,” he said.
In order to support the application, retailers partnering with shopkick have to install transmitters into their shops. For coverage in the common spaces of its malls, Simon has installed transmitters in various seating areas, walkways and food courts.
Morris said the rollout of the application had been “smooth.” Simon plans to have more than 100 malls across the U.S. shopkick-capable in time for the 2010 holiday shopping season, he said.
