The nation’s biggest mall operator is teaming up with a Silicon Valley startup to reward smart-phone-equipped shoppers for walking into its shopping centers.
The partnership between Simon Property Group, which owns 370 shopping centers, and technology company Shopkick Inc. is a big step in realizing retailers’ long-held dream of using cell phones to beam ads and coupons to people passing by.
Simon is launching the program by the end of the month in 25 malls in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago.
Separately, four retailers will start offering Shopkick offers at the same time at some stores, including Macy’s Inc. and electronics chain Best Buy Inc. The other two are being kept under wraps.
The potential to expand the program and affect how and what shoppers will buy is huge, according to Mikael Thygesen, Simon’s chief marketing officer. He is traveling around the country to recruit more retailers into the program.
Thygesen expects to roll the program out to 100 of Simon’s 370 shopping centers over the next couple of months. He anticipates one-third of the centers’ stores to sign up over the next year. Each center averages about 140 stores.
Shopkick’s system doesn’t use the Global Positioning System, or GPS, which is what phones usually use to determine their location. Instead, it relies on retailers installing small speakers at the entrance to their stores or the mall. The speakers emit an inaudible sound that can be picked up by cell phone microphones. The sound contains a code that identifies the store.
Customers have to pull out their phones and fire up the Shopkick application — available for iPhones and Android phones — to pick up the signal. The app figures out where they are, then credits their account with “Kickbucks,” which can be redeemed for songs from Napster; Facebook credits, a currency that can…