The retail space is experiencing a period of great innovations thanks to mobile applications.

3 of them [that have mutual implications] have to be followed carefully and tested if possible, in order not to lose any to our competitors.

They deal respectively with retail , marketing and business goals.

1. 1.       How to give customers more info on points of sale? Barcodes Scanning (a wrap-up)

You may first have heard of apps that enable to read any product barcode in a store to get the prices of the same product in e-commerce retailers and/or in nearby retail stores displayed on a map.

The actors:

·         Shopsavvy

o   Barcode scanning & display of prices in many e-tailers and nearby retailers

o   On Android, free

o   In base: 5.5+ M users, 20+ K retailers and 20+ M products

·         RedLaser

o   Barcode scanning & display of prices in many e-tailers

o   On Apple iOS, free

o   Bought 2 months ago by Ebay

·         Bing for iPhone

o   Barcode & cover art scanning / display of prices in a few e-tailers

o   The outsider

1. 2.      How to let customers interact with brands on Points of sale and spread the word? Products check-ins

You have heard of location check-ins via apps such as Foursquare: you can tell from the app in a click in which venue you’re at and automatically tell your friends about it.

Some actors of that space have extended the check-in to products : when you’re in a store, you can earn achievements (badges and points) by scanning barcodes from the app (cf point 1) and tell your friends about it if you’re up to. Partner brands get a premium exposure and scanning their products give in return extra points to users.

  The actors:

·         MyTown

o   Nearly 3 M users of the whole app

o   350 K products check-ins per week

o   Partnerships with haircare line Pantene and H&M

o   iPod/iPad users (who cannot scan the barcode, because no camera) can input the barcode numbers

·         CauseWorld (from Shopkick)

o   27 P&G products’ barcodes can be scanned, in exchange for Karma points, points that can be redeemed against donations to charities

 3.       How to boost sales on Points of sale? In-store notifications

One of the breakthrough of the iPhone4 is to allow background location, that is, your phone transmits your position to chosen apps in real time.

Thus, new applications rely on “Geofences”, virtual boundaries that make you receive notifications when you cross them.

The last one is Shopkick, the startup of CauseWorld. Each time you walk in into a partner store, the Shopkick app pushes a notification to your iPhone and informs you of special deals available in the store. Some deals may only be available in specific departments of the stores. At the cash register, you only have to give your phone number to get the virtual coupon redeemed.

Technically, boxes that emit ultrasounds have to be set up in the stores (several boxes if some departments have special offers). The costs and logistics make the effort US only, in the first times though.

Tests are done in Best Buy, Macy’s, American Eagle and Sports Authority stores in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. 257 US BestBuy stores are listed. BestBuy says to intend to analyze in-store shopper behavior related to collection and redemption of rewards through their smartphones.

Besides, each time a user walks in into a partner store or scan a barcode, points (or “Kickbucks”) are earned and can be redeemed for discounts at the store, Facebook credits, or song downloads from Napster.

The demo video explains everything: http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/03/shopkick-best-buy/