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Shopkick and Macy's Team Up for First Retail-Based iBeacons

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macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,481
30,715



Shopping app Shopkick has teamed up with Macy's to deliver the first retail-based iBeacons, allowing customers to find location-specific deals, discounts, and recommendations in the Shopkick app while in a participating Macy's store, located in Herald Square, New York and Union Square, San Francisco.

Apple's iBeacon microlocation APIs, first introduced at WWDC, are designed to access location data through the Bluetooth Low Energy profile on iOS devices, interacting with physical transmitters.

As shoppers enter Macy's, shopBeacon can remind those who've opted in to open their shopkick app, and in the future, also deliver personalized value with department-level granularity. Building on Apple's iBeacon, an iOS 7 Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) mobile protocol, shopBeacon adds encrypted signals to protect retailers and consumers, and complements it with shop kick's other proprietary technologies for added accuracy and scale.
Click to expand...
Shopkick's shopBeacons will welcome shoppers into a store when they enter, offering targeted deals and recommendations as customers peruse items in the store. The app does not need to be open for customers to receive the in-store alerts, and the recommendations are also tied into at-home browsing.
It can also tie at-home browsing behavior to in-store benefit; if the customer "likes" a specific product online, if they so choose, shopBeacon can remind them when they enter the store that Macy's sells it. Even better, in the future it can also deliver department-specific offers throughout the store - so favorite boots show up at the most useful time: in the shoe department.
Click to expand...
iBeacon technology first appeared earlier this year, when Major League Baseball announced plans to begin incorporating Apple's iBeacon APIs into its MLB.com At the Ballpark app to create interactive experiences within stadiums in the near future.

Apple is also said to be incorporating iBeacon technology into its own Apple Store app and retail stores, providing customers with enhanced location-based product information and in-store services.

The Shopkick app and Macy's new shopBeacon technology is set to go live in a few weeks following a closed beta testing period.

Article Link: Shopkick and Macy's Team Up for First Retail-Based iBeacons
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2013/11/20/shopkick-and-macys-team-up-for-first-retail-based-ibeacons/
O

old-wiz

macrumors G3
Mar 26, 2008
8,331
228
West Suburban Boston Ma
And users will be tracked through the store and the profile can be used in all sorts of ways. suppose you buy a pair of shoes...bingo..your info gets sold to shoe companies and suddenly you're on their lists as well.

The opportunities for abuse are amazing.
 
J

jaijaibinx

macrumors newbie
Jun 10, 2013
21
105
Leigh-On-Sea, United Kingdom
This will actually be really useful, sure there may be some privacy concerns etc.. but generally I am far to small in a big world for my data to negatively impact me if large organisations obtain it...
 
A

Alumeenium

macrumors regular
May 15, 2013
200
68
less tracking please :mad:

Minority Report was not supposed to be our blueprint for the future

Star Trek was...
 
iSRS

iSRS

macrumors 6502
Mar 2, 2010
468
291
old-wiz said:
And users will be tracked through the store and the profile can be used in all sorts of ways. suppose you buy a pair of shoes...bingo..your info gets sold to shoe companies and suddenly you're on their lists as well.

The opportunities for abuse are amazing.
Click to expand...

Well, this isn't necessarily tied to any purchase info. Yes, you can get extra kicks by linking your credit card to your shop kick app, but this has nothing to do with the iBeacons.

I actually hope this prevents me from needing to remember to launch the shop kick app before walking in. Would make it way more useful
 
gnasher729

gnasher729

Suspended
Nov 25, 2005
17,980
5,565
old-wiz said:
And users will be tracked through the store and the profile can be used in all sorts of ways. suppose you buy a pair of shoes...bingo..your info gets sold to shoe companies and suddenly you're on their lists as well.

The opportunities for abuse are amazing.
Click to expand...

Your iDevice knows where the beacons are.
That doesn't mean the beacons know where the iDevice is.

It sounds like you can install an app that takes advantage of the location data and gives you additional info that you may or may not find useful. If you think that app would track you in ways you don't like, don't install it.
 
DipDog3

DipDog3

macrumors 65816
Sep 20, 2002
1,191
812
I want to input my shopping list and have the app give me the most efficient route to pick up my items so I won't have to wonder around the store.
 
O

osx11

macrumors 6502a
Jan 16, 2011
825
0
jaijaibinx said:
This will actually be really useful, sure there may be some privacy concerns etc.. but generally I am far to small in a big world for my data to negatively impact me if large organisations obtain it...
Click to expand...

In terms of privacy, no one is bigger than you in this big world. This is the misconception that people have. It's like saying I'm not going to vote because my one vote won't make a difference. But guess what, your one vote is just as important as everyone else's vote. No one person's vote is more important than yours. The same goes for your privacy and information that companies can get. Why would they care about someone else more than you?
 
T

TMay

macrumors 68000
Dec 24, 2001
1,520
1
Carson City, NV
It's op in

Each consumer has to make a conscious decision to install the app for each merchant, and each consumer can turn individual apps off anytime.

Not seeing the big brother aspect for typical Google/Facebook user; just more of the same. Some people will find this useful.

I spend little time in retail stores; hence not for me.
 
C

coolfactor

macrumors 604
Jul 29, 2002
7,040
9,695
Vancouver, BC
She stopped right in the doorway to look at her phone. I can see that happening a lot. Our society already suffers from "phone-itis", and this takes it to a new level. People walking around with their faces in their phones instead of talking to real people.

Okay, secretly, I think this is cool, probably because it's an Apple-born technology. Will I get to use it on my little island of paradise? Hmmmm... that's hard to say. I visited my first Apple store this year, and that was an hour and a half plane trip away. lol
 
seecoolguy

seecoolguy

macrumors 6502
Nov 28, 2007
256
34
old-wiz said:
And users will be tracked through the store and the profile can be used in all sorts of ways. suppose you buy a pair of shoes...bingo..your info gets sold to shoe companies and suddenly you're on their lists as well.

The opportunities for abuse are amazing.
Click to expand...

if you use your store credit card they can do that today w/o iBeacon.
 
seecoolguy

seecoolguy

macrumors 6502
Nov 28, 2007
256
34
DipDog3 said:
I want to input my shopping list and have the app give me the most efficient route to pick up my items so I won't have to wonder around the store.
Click to expand...

some store apps are starting to get it, the Target App has now had the aisle information so you can create a shopping list and easily find what you need to buy... with Lowes, they take it one step further where you can buy through the app and your items are waiting for you at customer service.. I like that option :)
 
coalchamber1022

coalchamber1022

macrumors member
Apr 21, 2010
57
37
more idiots in the middle of aisle on phones

As if Macy's doesn't have enough morons stopped in the middle of the aisle looking at their phones.
 
nutmac

nutmac

macrumors 603
Mar 30, 2004
6,053
7,314
I used to love Shopkick, having earned a ton of iTunes gift cards. But every new major version update brings radical UI change for the worse. The latest version is completely unusable.
 
M

Michael73

macrumors 65816
Feb 27, 2007
1,082
41
The thing that seems missing in the video is an iPhone with NFC (rather than paying with her Macy's card).
 
Shannighan

Shannighan

macrumors 6502a
Jul 26, 2007
584
1
Buffalo, NY
TMay said:
NFC is dead tech to Apple, and Google is adopting alternatives to NFC as well. Hence the BTLE and iBeacon which eliminate the need for NFC.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure why people continue to compare NFC to BLE / iBeacons. The technologies are different, and developed with different purposes in mind. The biggest different being their range, with BLE having a range of ~30 feet as opposed to the ~5 inches typically found with NFC. (I do realize RFID can have much larger ranges)
 
macduke

macduke

macrumors G5
Jun 27, 2007
13,133
19,658
I want to use this as an indoor GPS to find stores in the mall that have the products I want to buy. I want to use this technology to pay for items.

I don't want them logging info about me or sending me coupons. Yuck.
 
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