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Shoppers are warming to beacons and virtual reality.
The majority of consumers are open to location-based technology as long as it improves their shopping experience, according to a new study.
In the no-surprise department, coupons are viewed as the biggest incentive, based on a survey of 1,400 U.S. consumers focused on shopping habits and emerging retail technology conducted by Walker Sands.
While a third (33%) of consumers aren’t open to beacons or any location-based technology in stores, 67% say in-store tracking could improve their in-store shopping experience.
Beacons are driving mobile coupons and redemption rates are on the rise.
Several new studies are out indicating that the growth of beacons around the world is on the march and that when shoppers get a mobile coupon, offer redemption is right behind, sometimes in fewer than two minutes.
Beacons add a finer touch to location-based offers, since the small radio-transmitting devices can be located near specific products or in certain departments.
Brands have found that coupons with a location element typically enjoy far higher redemption rates than those without.
Many major retailers, including Macy’s, Target and Lord & Taylor, have installed thousands of beacons, many to learn the ins and outs of what works and what doesn’t....
We are back with another issue of ‘Best of Beacons this Week’. This week we’ve got a great lineup of beacon articles in store, including how Pizza Hut installed beacons across 1471 locations, to why Wi-Fi and beacons can work together to deliver great experiences, and more. So sit back, sip a cup of coffee and check out the stories we have lined up for you.
In fact, general interest in beacons seems to have peaked in late 2014, and they've been on a decline ever since, according to Google search trends.
This is also reflected in consumer awareness. Despite the privacy furor over the past few years, beacons—with their potential to seriously invade consumer privacy—have dwindled in consumer minds.
Hence, in 2014 a Harris poll found that 57% of smartphone owners were aware of in-store beacons, while 20% claimed to have used them. A more recent First Insights survey, however, uncovered that 70% of consumers couldn't distinguish a beacon from a beaver, and a paltry 3.4% claim to have used one....
Beacons are going to answer two important questions for any companies that successfully use them: "Who are you really?" and "What do you care about, both outside this store and right here, right now?"
The beacons themselves are dumb little pieces of hardware that do nothing more than sense when you’re near them. However, in combination with their custom application on your phone, companies can opt to systematically use beacons torment you with "coupons" and alerts, or they can use your loyalty data to provide you a more streamlined, contextual, and personal customer experience.
WE HAVEN’T SEEN MUCH USE OF BEACON TECHNOLOGY—YET.
Paypal was the first to team beacons and virtual transactions, but we haven’t seen much use of beacon techonology—yet. Apps are required to trip beacons as you walk through store. Most companies haven’t had enough of their apps in market to trip a worthwhile amount of beacons in their stores. Companies need customers with their app on the phone, location services turned on, and Bluetooth turned on.
This means companies like Bloomingdales desperately need all customers and potential customers to download their app. That’s not as easy as it sounds without providing value in exchange for downloads....
ey first came to the world’s attention 12 months ago with the launch of Apple’s iBeacons in the US. This launch was closely followed by another defining milestone: the Regent Street project in the UK, a first of its kind now in full swing.
Soon after, as I was talking to two outdoor media owners, they were telling me about their plans to bring the technology to the Australian market – both understandably racing to be the first in market given its huge potential for highly-targeted mobile marketing.
Plenty has been written since on how the technology works and its marketing possibilities. For my part, I am genuinely excited about its many benefits. Yet there are some drawbacks to be mindful of also....
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Coupons are quickly growing as a significant component of beacon-enabled proximity marketing thanks to strong redemption rates, with brands and retailers forecast to deliver 1.6 billion coupons a year by 2020, according to a new report from Juniper Research.
The results point to how proximity marketing is gaining traction as retailers look to engage more deeply with consumers in and around their stores, prompting the volume of beacon-enabled coupons to grow quickly from the 11 million expected to be delivered in 2015. However, the research also underscores the potential danger of turning beacons into nothing more than another offer channel, which is likely to cause shoppers to lose interest.
“I would imagine that coupons will represent a key plank of any beacon-based proximity marketing strategy,” said Dr. Windsor Holden, head of forecasting and consultancy at Juniper Research as well as author of the report....
Beacons are excellent tools for creating location-based and real-time mobile experiences. Some big businesses are experimenting with using beacons to deliver localized, timely, and relevant information and marketing offers, including Facebook, Target, and the London Underground.
When they work, it’s magic — but sometimes that’s easier said than done.
Through our own research and conversations we’ve had with companies that have tried beacons before, we’ve identified a number of problems companies run into when they decide to give beacons a try....
Mobiquity Networks, a mall-based beacon provider, has signed a deal with shopping discounts app platform GeoQpons to help stores and brands present greater discovery options to consumers on-the-go.
The partnership calls for GeoQpons to send push notifications triggered by Mobiquity beacons stationed in malls around the country. GeoQpons provides loyalty rewards, reminders of clearance sales, shopping lists and, most relevantly to Mobiquity’s beacon platform, in-store coupons redeemable through the app itself.
The GeoQpons app works for over 300 retailers including Target, Best Buy, Walmart, and Nordstrom and has a userbase of 5.5 million people. For Mobiquity’s part, the company’s beacons cover 320 malls and 7,500 different retailers for a total reach of over 40,000 storefronts. Now, beacons in every one of those stores will recognize the GeoQpons app and engage with customers directly through it with promotions and in-store coupons....
This week Target became the latest retailer to integrate beacon technology into the shopping experience, announcing that it will test using low-energy Bluetooth beacons to deliver coupons and special offers to the mobile devices of shoppers when they’re near the product in question.
Target is currently testing the beacon technology at 50 stores in major markets across the country, including New York City, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco and Seattle. The retail giant plans to limit the number of mobile push notifications sent to each device to two per visit, in order to avoid driving shoppers insane....
By the time you finally submit a payment for an online purchase, chances are good that the seller knows quite a bit about you. Your browsing history reveals all sorts of clues: your interests, which advertisements you’ve been exposed to, and even basic demographics like your probable age range and gender. Just the operating system you use can send significant signals about the prices you’ll tolerate—researchers recently demonstrated that a variety of sites routinely charge more to shoppers using Macs or Android devices.
By comparison, when you make a purchase in a physical store you may as well be anonymous (unless you use a loyalty or membership card). Amongst the unignorable success of companies like Amazon and Alibaba and the exponential growth of e-commerce in general, it’s easy to forget that 75 percent of retail sales still take place in physical stores. And those stores are eager to know just as much about their in-store shoppers as they do about their online shoppers—if not more....
To state the obvious: Modern, smartphone-toting humans spend most of their time indoors.
But indoor spaces often block cell signals and make it nearly impossible to locate devices via GPS. Beacons are a solution.Beacons are a low-cost piece of hardware — small enough to attach to a wall or countertop — that use battery-friendly, low-energy Bluetooth connections to transmit messages or prompts directly to a smartphone or tablet. They are poised to transform how retailers, event organizers, transit systems, enterprises, and educational institutions communicate with people indoors.
Consumers might even want to deploy them as part of home automation systems....
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Shoppers say bring on the in-store coupons and perhaps some maps.