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

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Apr 12, 2001
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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.
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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.
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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/
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.
 
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...
 
less tracking please :mad:

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

Star Trek was...
 
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
 
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.
 
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.
 
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?
 
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.
 
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
 
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.
 
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 :)
 
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.
 
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.
 
The thing that seems missing in the video is an iPhone with NFC (rather than paying with her Macy's card).
 
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)
 
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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