International opportunities for Shopkick

With the growing user base of Shokpick coupled with addition of new business partners, now it is about time  that Shopkick should expand its app beyond the US. There are tremendous opportunities to capture in the urban areas of the growing economies like – India and China. Urban areas of these countries have the right demographic target market that Shopkick relies on for its business model.

Both of these countries are witnessing an impressive growth (8% for India) in their organized retail (mall) industry (current size $3.3 Billion in India) segments  with increasing disposable incomes amongst its urban population (currently around 350 million in India). This consumer evolution still relies on brick-and-mortar based shopping behavior for majority of their shopping, while the user base of online shoppers in these countries, although small, is growing exponentially with increasing internet penetration via mobile devices (approximately 125 million smartphone users in India).

As a short term business growth strategy, Shopkick can tap into these markets so as to maintain store walk-in behavior and offer kickbucks  in order to reward this existing brick-and-mortar shopping behavior, while online shopping is still playing a fast catch-up.

Sources:

1. http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/india%60s-consumption-evolution/283444/

2. http://indiamicrofinance.com/mckinsey-report-urban-india-2030-projections-statistics.html

3. library.ucr.edu

Groundswell Technology Test on Shopkick

First let us understand, What is Groundswell Technology Test ?

This test consists of five questions that need to be answered by a brand using any social media tool/application/technology.

1. Does it enable people to connect with each other? – If a tool/application/technology used by a brand makes people connect in more interesting, more varied or more frequent ways, then it has good potential for adoption. i.e.  Can your tool/app spread virally, as existing participants recruit new people to join them.

2. Is it effortless to sign up for? -The technologies that succeed are the ones that are free and easy to connect up to technologies people already have. Eg: Signing up for Facebook

3. Does it shiftpower from institutions to people? -Technologies that mostly benefit companies don’t tend to catch on. Those that benefit people do. Eg: Facebook gave people power to connect without any supervision by company and Wikipedia allowed people to create content without expert approval.

4. Does the community generate enough content to sustain itself ? -All successful technologies make it easy for people to create content and to benefit from each others’ content.

5. Is it an open platform that invites partnerships? -This component of the test determines whether a product will wither or flourish. Closed platforms don’t evolve as fast because they don’t tap into the well of innovation that is the Web 2.0 development community. Eg: Open platforms like Facebook, which opened up its interfaces to application developers, get continual new functionality without so much work on the part of the founders.

We applied the above discussed Groundswell Technology Test on Shopkick, that lead us to the results as shown below:

Connect : Shopkick has no viral aspect since it an individual consumption drive reward application system used by an individual ontheir mobile device.

Effortless: Yes, it is very easy to sign up for Shopkick

Shift of Power: No, since companies/brands/corporates offer rewards thereby shaping consumer behavior, hence the power still lies with them and not the consumer/user.

Content: Yes, Shopkick generates  individual purchase/consumption data, but it does not facilitate user generated content.

Open Platform: Shopkick is a partially open platform. At the most an individual user can just post share a facebook link inviting another user to join Shopkick there by giving both of them 50 reward points. Essentially Shopkick is still on “one-to-many” platform and is lacking a “many-to-many” platform.

Note: Our source of data for the five questions on Groundswell Technology test is from the book: “Groundswell, Expanded and Revised Edition: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies” by Authors: Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, ISBN number: 1422161986

What’s the math for the number of kickbucks it would take to earn a cruise?

What are kickbucks? Well, they are points. You can collect them and earn rewards from some of your favorite vendors like Best Buy, Sports Authority, Macy’s or American Eagle. At the time of this review, they had begun partnering with Target and Wet Seal but they had not brought the advantage nationwide yet. You can even choose to donate your kickbucks to good causes or splurge them on a cruise.

Shopkick offers the current gift cards for Kickbucks:

Shopkick Adds Another Partner

After having successfully partnered with Visa Inc. in December 2011, shopkick just added another partner – ExxonMobil. With this new partnership, shopkick enters into the retail petroleum and convenience store space.  Kicks will be offered at 375 Exxon or Mobil branded retail locations in and around Miami, New York City, and Washington D.C. ExxonMobil will allow customers that use the shopkick app at its gas station convenience stores to earn points that can be redeemed at the stores of other retailers that have partnered with shopkick. The idea is that the incentive to earn additional points will help steer shopkick’s more than 3 million users to ExxonMobil stations, instead of competing gas stations.

Although ExxonMobil is the first in the convenience store and fuels industry to incorporate shopkick, more than 11 national retailers and 40 major brand partners have already joined shopkick’s distinctive cross-retailer rewards program including Target, Kraft, Best Buy, Procter & Gamble, and American Eagle.

When shopkick added Visa Inc. in December 2011 as it’s partner, they closed the loop – rewarding shoppers at every step of the shopping process from discovery to purchase. With the Visa network, shoppers get more rewards and shopkick’s retail partners get more shoppers and eventual purchases. This is a win-win situation.

Read more: ExxonMobil Taps shopkick to Lure Drivers

Image: PR Newswire