Shopper, the top selling iPhone shopping assistant from ReachEverywhere, has launched a successful integration of all of the localized on-sale content (e.g., retailer circular data) that ShopLocal has to offer. At its core, the Shopper iPhone app is a shopping list management tool – and ReachEverywhere has incorporated ShopLocal’s local circular content across the retailer’s consumer know and trust to aid the app users in their decision making process in a seamless user interface.
Here is a snippet of the release notes that detail the ShopLocal content integration:
“Shopper is now integrated with the weekly flyers from Target, K Mart, Meijer, Babies R Us, Walgreens, Home Depot, and literally over 100 of your favorite stores (see What’s new for a complete list of stores available). You keep your shopping lists as you always have, and Shopper shows you the relevant specials from stores around you. No more flipping thru stacks of flyers on Sunday morning – saving you time and money!”
And here is what the trade publication the Progressive Grocer had to say about the app with the addition of weekly ad specials:
“Our research indicates busy consumers want to quickly pull relevant money-saving specials on what they intend to purchase rather than sift through catalogs of unrelated products from the newspaper and mail every week,” said Sean Flynn, CEO of ReachEverywhere. “This is just another step in our mission to help save shoppers time and money, and we have more coming soon.”
This is the company that is behind the 'Shopper' app
In addition to the ShopLocal circular content, the app has Guiding Stars Nutritional information on select products, allows real-time list syncing between users (send your significant other to the store with an always updated list!), coordinates multiple store lists, and keeps a running total of the amount you intend to spend.
To ensure the circular content’s relevance, the Shopper app uses the existing shopping list items as search terms to query the Shoplocal Cross-Retailer API (SCRAPI) – only returning retailer specials that are targeted to the purchase intent of today’s store visit. It’s another great example of what a creative partner can come up with using ShopLocal content.
If you have $0.99 cents to spare, its a great ap that is worthwhile to check out. Hey, you may even end up using it to help buy your groceries.
ReachEverywhere’s insight that people already have their shopping lists built before searching for weekly specials is unique. In fact, one could envision the Shopper app becoming a sort of search engine for in-store deals on the iPhone, which would create a lead generation machine for brands and retailers. For instance, if the Diaper category is a destination and basket size driver for a store- they could ensure Shopper users who intend to purchase Diapers see their circular sourced, in-store specials by sponsoring that category in the app.
The app is firmly centered around the concept of a shopping list
ShopLocal weeekly ad data shows up in all sorts of places within this app, usually under the title of "My Flyers+"
With the inclusion of the weekly ad deals across retailers, ReachEverywhere was able to increase their rankings within the iTunes app store Lifestyles category to the #7 most popular paid app, an increase of over 10 spots at the time of the release of the version of the app that contained the ShopLocal content (since then, they have fallen to #35 currently).
The Home Depot recently joined the ranks of other top retailers to launch their own branded iPhone app. It’s a version 1 type release, but from what I know there is a lot planned in the future to really rev up this app. However within this initial version, the THD localized weekly ad content is included (and powered via the ShopLocal SmartDelivery API). The notable feature here is how the weekly ad content is connected to a “list” concept. This creates a useful digital – to – real world shopping tool that users can take advantage of to help capture and plan upcoming in-store shopping visits.
This is the app's start up splash screen
This is the main default landing screen
Once a user selects the "Shop" tab, this is what the user sees next
If a user selects "Weekly Ad", this is the next screen that appears with a list of current categories
Once a specific weekly ad category is selected, a results set is returned of on sale products
Once a specific product is selected, an item detail screen appears with two calls action - add to a wish list OR add to a shopping list
Receiving customer feedback is such a blessing. When real users take the time to tell you what needs to be improved, it really helps make the best product possible. Within the iTunes App Store, this is exactly what happens every day for the over 100,000 live iPhone apps.
Specifically for the Kohl’s Weekly Ad & Store Finder app, the 11 comments and 417 ratings (3 star average and trending upwards) that users have left have directly impacted the app. For example, users early on where getting confused on how to select a specific weekly ad and then how to browse through all the pages. The team took that feedback and added back and next buttons to address this usability issue.
Within the main screen, easy to use previous and next buttons have been added as well as paging info and helpful on screen tip.
Within the browse by brands and department tabs, a keyword search box and a handy jump-to a specific letter has been added.
Version 1.02 is now live and contains the following enhancements:
- Search for on sale offers by keyword(s) within the brand and category screens
- Jump to a specific brand or category value within a newly added, A – through – Z right hand short cut element to reduce screen scrolling, especially through the longer list of brand names that are on sale currently
- Fixed a bug that caused the user’s current location not to be stored and used to find nearby store Kohl’s locations
- Resolved a pesky bug within browse by brand that was keeping all results from appearing
- Enhanced the way users can browse through all available promotion front covers by adding previous and next buttons
- Enhanced the way users can browse through all the pages that make up a specific promotion by adding previous and next buttons
- Inserted some useful on screen tips that prompt users to double tap a specific promotion front cover to the view the rest of the pages of that ad
- Added support to double-tap to zoom back out to a normal level of zoom from a promotion page image that had been previously zoomed in to (by multi-touch pinching)
The wait is over. The Kohl’s Weekly Ad & Store Finder iPhone / iPod Touch application is now live within the Apple iTunes App Store. The ShopLocal team has been working on this for months and it’s great to finally get this live for the general public (thanks Apple for working the weekend and pushing this live last Saturday 10/31).
The team is also excited to see that a good chunk of people have already downloaded the app, given that no promotion has occurred yet, including a few outside of the U.S. (not sure why though?). It will be fun to see this app’s download footprint grow in the coming days, especial within the crowded Lifestyles iTunes app category. It’s one of those things that you really don’t exactly know how your baby (um, I mean app) will be received by the world.
It’s a free download so please download and check it out. Tell us what you think by leaving feedback within iTunes or rating the app there as well.
Available now, the free Kohl's Weekly Ad & Store Finder application
Within this iPhone app, there are four main features and content views which are browse by:
- Weekly Ad Page: Users can browse through all the active weekly ads for their current store location and then can select a specific promotion to view all of the circular pages one at a time
- Brands: App users can filter all of the current on sale deals by a specific brand such as Nike or Dockers
- Categories (called Offers in the app): Allows consumers to select a specific category of interest such as Girl’s Shoes and to only view those applicable deals that are live right now for their current store location
- Nearby Kohl’s Store Locations: Shoppers can use their current location to pull up a list of Kohl’s stores that are close by, as well as directly call the local store or view the store’s location within a Google map
Here is a collage of many of the different views and slices of weekly ad content that is exposed by this native iPhone app that is built around the best local deals that are available at local Kohl's stores across the U.S.
The latest 3 minute Ad Age video focuses on MasterCard’s Priceless Picks free iPhone app. They give a quick demonstration of the app and interview MasterCard Worldwide CMO Larry Flanagan. Click here for the Ad Age video.
ShopLocal helped launch this app in July, and it was a fun experience working with McCann Erickson and the rest of the team. For more information about the MasterCard Priceless Picks app click here.
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