Shopkick

Shopkick, Inc. operates as a mobile application that rewards consumers for their shopping activities, both online and in-physical stores. The company was founded in 2009 by Cyriac Roeding, Jeff Sellinger, and Aaron Emigh, officially launching its app in the summer of 2010. The founding team brought together a diverse set of experiences; Roeding had a background in mobile technology and marketing, having served as an executive at CBS, and Sellinger came with expertise in mobile gaming and applications. This combination of mobile engagement and marketing acumen laid the groundwork for the company's rewards-based business model.

The business operates within the mobile marketing and customer loyalty markets, serving a dual client base: consumers using the app and retail/brand partners seeking to drive traffic and sales. For consumers, Shopkick provides a gamified shopping experience by awarding points, called "kicks," for various actions. These actions include walking into partner stores, scanning barcodes of specific products, making purchases with a linked card, viewing online products, or watching branded videos. These accumulated kicks can then be redeemed for gift cards at a wide range of retailers, such as Amazon, Starbucks, and Target. This model incentivizes shoppers to engage with brands and visit stores they might not have otherwise.

For its business clients, which include major retailers and CPG brands like P&G, Unilever, and Best Buy, Shopkick offers a pay-for-performance advertising platform. Partners are charged based on the specific actions consumers take, such as a cost-per-entry when a user walks into a store, or a cost-per-scan for product engagement. This performance-based model provides a measurable return on investment for marketing spend, linking advertising directly to physical and digital consumer behavior. The platform's core technology utilizes a shopBeacon device, a small transmitter that uses Bluetooth Low Energy to detect the presence of a user's smartphone when they enter a store, automatically awarding them kicks. In 2014, Shopkick was acquired by the South Korean mobile and e-commerce company SK Planet, a subsidiary of SK Telecom, for a reported $200 million, which marked a significant milestone in its journey. Subsequently, in 2019, Israeli mobile commerce company Trax acquired Shopkick to integrate its in-store execution solutions with Shopkick's consumer engagement platform.

Keywords: mobile rewards, shopper loyalty, retail marketing, consumer engagement, pay-for-performance, location-based marketing, CPG advertising, in-store analytics, mobile commerce, barcode scanning