American Eagle to Deploy Shopkick’s ShopBeacon in February
The clothing retailer will roll out ShopBeacon in 100 of its "top-performing" locations to "provide [its] customers with the best mobile shopping experience available today."
Clothing retailer American Eagle Outfitters and shopping app Shopkick have announced plans to launch ShopBeacon, “the first Apple iBeacon-based presence signal for retailers,” in 100 “top-performing” American Eagle and Aerie stores in the U.S.
According to Apple, iBeacon is a location and proximity detection technology. ShopBeacon uses iBeacon to welcome shoppers when they enter stores and offer location-based deals, Shopkick says.
According to Shopkick, American Eagle is deploying ShopBeacon to 100 locations, including stores in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Boston, and San Francisco. These stores were chosen based on traction with the Shopkick app, which gives shoppers rewards and offers for walking into stores, and, according to a December press release, is used by more than 6 million consumers.
The American Eagle ShopBeacon trial will go live in February.
Two Macy’s locations in San Francisco and New York went live with the ShopBeacon technology before Black Friday last year and were the first live installations at any large retailer, Shopkick says.
When shoppers enter an American Eagle or Macy’s store, ShopBeacon will welcome them and display location-specific rewards, deals, discounts, and product recommendations without requiring the customer to open the app. What’s more, if the consumer likes a specific product online, ShopBeacon can remind them where that product is sold in the store. In the future, it can also deliver department-specific offers throughout the store, Shopkick says.
By working with the 100 American Eagle stores that have the highest traffic in the U.S., the trial is designed to deliver data and to learn how consumers enjoy ShopBeacon, Shopkick says.
The Shopkick app also delivers rewards to shoppers for browsing and interacting with products and purchasing at participating retail stores as well as within the app. Shoppers can earn rewards like gift cards, coffee or dinner, handbags, song downloads, movie tickets, and donations to charity, the brand says.
According to a press release, American Eagle rolled out Shopkick to all of its stores in 2012.
In a statement, Joe Megibow, senior vice president of omni-channel eCommerce at American Eagle, says the brand is partnering with Shopkick again to “provide our customers with the best mobile shopping experience available today” and he hopes ShopBeacon will help “deliver a plug and play solution that works to personalize our customers’ shopping experience in an impactful and powerful way.”
American Eagle declined further comment.
“American Eagle Outfitters’ shoppers are tech-savvy, social, and love their smartphones,” said Shopkick chief executive Cyriac Roeding in a statement. “ShopBeacon is able to connect to this new generation of shoppers as a trusted companion, by reminding opted-in users to open the Shopkick app at the entrance of the store, and further personalize their shopping experience with alerts and high-value rewards.”
A Shopkick rep was not available for comment.
American Eagle says it has more than 1,000 stores under its American Eagle and Aerie brands in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, China, and Hong Kong.
Additional Shopkick partners include Best Buy, Crate & Barrel, JCPenney, MasterCard, Old Navy, Simon Property Group, Sony, The Sports Authority, Target, Visa, Procter & Gamble, Kraft Foods, Revlon, Unilever, Pepsi, Levi’s, and HP.
