Shopkick Ban [Update]

This is an update for the Shopkick Ban post from 2 weeks ago. I wanted to test how long the app would take to detect that I was using cheats. Long story short I was banned after attempting to scan barcodes online using my girlfriend’s iPhone. I emailed Shopkick trying to get my account reactivated. However, after waiting impatiently for about 2 weeks, it’s safe to me to say that I will never get a response. Needless to say that I’m very disappointed in how they are treating their customers. Just the fact that I don’t even know if my request was received or not really frustrates me. Since I really did use cheats and it wasn’t on my own phone, I don’t bear a grudge against Shopkick. I wish others have more luck reaching them than me.

I will definitely continue using Shopkick on my phone. However, using cheats is obviously not the route to go since once you get banned, you will lose all the hard earned kicks and would have to start over from the beginning. I know that many have complained for getting banned for no reason at all, my suggestion for you guys is to post on their Facebook fan page and cross you fingers and hope that one of the administrators would get back to you.

American Eagle and Aerie Goes NATIONWIDE

American Eagle Outfitters announced today the national rollout of Shopkick to all American Eagle Outfitters and Aerie stores across the country. Beginning today, customers will earn kicks just for walking in, as well as receive a number of other exciting, exclusive offers throughout the stores. They are celebrating this with 200 kicks for walk-in reward. Also, walk-in today to enter AE Sweepstakes for a chance to win one of four $500 AE gift cards.

Latest News: Target Takes Shopkick App Nationwide

On May 23rd, Target announced that they will be taking the Shopkick App Nationwide. Shopkick had presence in 242 of the Target stores from their contract back in Nov. of 2010. Target will now be putting Shopkick audio transmitter device in all of the stores across the U.S. making this the largest partnership. Shopkick reportedly helped retailers bring in more than 110 million dollars in the last fiscal year.

source: Kare11 News

Shopkick Ban

It’s official! I’m BANNED.!!!

I have read articles and visited plenty of sites that talk about Shopkick cheats. I decided to do an experiment to see how long it would take for the app to realize that I’m using cheats. But of course I’m not going to put my account at risk for this, I decided to try this on my girlfriend’s iPhone. There are many ways to cheat the app and the following are just the ones I have heard:

• Scan the barcodes (UPC or QR code) online without actually going to the store.
• Record the inaudible sound that is played at store entrances for recognizing walk-ins
• GPS hack to allow the user to search more stores

I decided to use the first method to see how long it would take for me to get caught and what would happen if I do get banned. I did a simple google search for sites that have images of the barcodes  for the products available to scan at the participating stores. I found a site where the barcodes are most up-to-date. With this, I started scanning the barcodes daily. It was extremely easy to gather the kicks as the barcodes are still images that can be captured by the camera steadily. Using this method, I was able to collect roughly about 200 kicks a day. However, the judgement date finally came for me on the 9th day where I received a big red notice right when I launched the app. Also, another error message was given when I try to use my kicks to redeem for rewards.

On Shopkick’s Facebook page, I found that many Shopkick users are complaining for getting banned for no apparent reason and getting no respond when they emailed this problem in. One of administrators for the page made the following comment: “Hi all- We do not ban users for redeeming rewards. If you were banned and not scanning barcodes from a website send us an email at support@shopkick.com. Thanks!-shopkick Cat.” I decided to send in an email to see if they would actually reinstate my account with no questions asked. For the moment, I will keep my fingers crossed and hope for some good news from Shopkick.

Redeem Kicks for Rewards: Facebook Credits & Instant Gift Card

This past weekend I decided to visit some stores and scan some products in order to collect kicks on my iPhone. I visited the shopping center near my house which has a lot of the shopkick’s participating stores clustered together. I was able to pay a visit to Sport Authority, Best Buy, Toy’R’Us, Staples, Old Navy, Walmart and Target. And after my little shopping spree, I earned enough kicks (1372 kicks to be exact seen in left photo) to redeem some great rewards for myself.

Most partnered stores offer instant gift card with $5 as the smallest redeemable amount by using 1250 kicks. With my 1372 kicks, I had enough to pick a $5 instant gift card from the store I desired. But since this was my first time redeeming a reward and I had absolutely no idea how to do this, I decided to test it by first getting 1 Facebook Credit using 25 kicks. This was fairly simple as I was able to navigate to the redeeming page (seen in middle photo) easily by tabbing on ‘Facebook Credits’ on the list of redeemable rewards. With a simple click on ‘Redeem,’ the 1 Facebook Credit was instantly deposited into my already linked Facebook account (seen in right photo).

As I had remaining kicks and happened to be in need for a new pair of workout gloves, I decided to redeem a $5 Instant Gift Card from Sport Authority where a wide variety of workout gloves are being offered.  By going through the same steps as redeeming the Facebook credit, I successfully received my $5 shopkick loyalty certificate. Since the instant gift cards are only redeemable on in-store purchases by giving the loyalty code (last 10 digits of the shopkick loyalty certificate) to the cashier, I headed out to the nearby Sport Authority and picked out the gloves. The transaction went smoothly and I was able to receive a $5 discount on my gloves. Overall, I’m very happy with the redeeming process and I will definitely continue using shopkick to get more kicks to redeem other rewards in the near future.

Why Pick Shopkick Over Others?

Shopkick VS. Foursquare & Daily Deals

After trying out shopkick on my iphone for the past couple of weeks, I can truly say that I am a fan!! Shopkick has dramatically improved my shopping experience as it gives me the chance to enjoy shopping guilt-free. I downloaded both shopkick and Foursquare at the same time and have been trying them for quiet sometimes. I found the following advantages for shopkick which outshine Foursquare:

• Shopkickers do not actually need to “check-in” to the store as kicks are received automatically when entering the store while the application is fired up. This is very convenient for Shopkickers to earn kicks as it’s fast and simple.
• Shopkick has partnered with big retailers such as Best Buy and Target, and if these big retailers are pushing this new marketing platform, it’s very likely to become the next big thing not just for shoppers but also other retailers.
• Unlike Foursquare, shopkick does not focus on game features (e.g. badges) that would confuse the users about the purpose of the app.
• Lastly, I was able to earn more points within one store as I scan the UPC of different items**. This allows shopkickers to gather kicks faster in order to redeem the reward they most desire.

Next, I would like give you some reasons to pick shopkick over daily deals sites. I personally visit a variety of daily deals sites quiet often such as Slickdeals and Dealnews.

• One huge advantage for shopkick is that it allows users to see just the in-store deals around them. This is crucial as many of the deals on the daily deals sites are from stores that are not even remotely close. Great deals are meaningless when they are so far out of reach where more than often the high shipping cost kills the deal. Shopkickers do not have this problem as the app would only display deals from nearby stores.
• Earning rewards for just walking into a participating store is another reason for choosing shopkick over daily deals sites as the guilt of shopping often sets in when one shops online. Shopkick gives user rewards no matter if they make a purchase or not. This allows Shopkickers to redeem rewards without spending a dime which lead to a guilt-free shopping experience.

**This actually creates a loophole as shopkick does not seem to care if you are in the store when you are scanning the items or not. They kind of have this somewhat under control by limiting how many times you can scan in any rolling 30 day period.

How to Drive More Customers to Your Local Business with Shopkick

Who wouldn’t want to get rewards while shopping at stores you normally do?  Shopkick serves as a platform for customers to collect rewards (they called it “kicks”) while shopping at participating stores. Shopkickers would start receiving kicks by simply just walking into the participating stores. Further, customers would receive more kicks as they walk around the stores and scan the UPC of different merchandise. These kicks can be redeemed by merchants for real-world rewards and discounts (e.g. instant gift cards,  Coach handbag, Xbox 360).

By joining Shopkick, small-business owners are able to lure in more customers and encourage repeat visits at the same time to boost their sales. How so, you may ask? Well, since customers are given incentives for just entering the participating stores, these free kicks would formulate a fulfilling sentiment in the customers’ minds which would in return increase the likelihood for the customers to make purchases. Small local businesses do not need to worry about spending any money to promote Shopkick as many big-box retailers in the U.S. have already opted in to Shopkick  and the app itself currently has millions of active users. Shopkick gives merchants a lot of freedom in choosing what rewards they want to offer in order to bait the prospective customers towards them.

Small local businesses can enjoy the free publicity offered by Shopkick as all the nearby participating stores would be recommended to Shopkickers. This can bring in customers who wouldn’t usually shop there or even know the existence of these local businesses. Shopkickers are presented with current deals that are being offered by the participating stores and also how many free kicks they would receive for walk-in. This is a benefit that is hard to resist for many shopping-lovers. For example, a customer who’s looking to purchase a new laptop would see that a local electronic store has a laptop on sale for a great price and would also receive 200 kicks for walk-in. This would increase the chance of this particular customer to drop by the store drastically to take a look at this deal.

Source:

http://www.openforum.com/articles/how-it-works-customer-loyalty-platform-shopkick