Meeting shoppers right where they are. This principle is at the core of ShopLocal’s latest product innovation – the Weekly Ad Facebook App.
Instead of always trying to push and pull user to a specific destination site (e.g., retailer.com), smart retailer today are building out rich and inviting socially enabled experiences within the areas of the web that users spend most of their time within – namely portals and social sites.
Since Facebook is clearly the largest social site in the world with over 350 active users (see the rest of their insane stats below), making sure any given retailer’s brand is well represented within this massive ecosystem is now becoming a requirement.
- 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
- More than 35 million users update their status each day
- More than 55 million status updates posted each day
- More than 2.5 billion photos uploaded to the site each month
- More than 3.5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week
- More than 1.6 million active Pages on Facebook
- Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans
- The US represents about 30% of total users
So why add weekly ad content (or any other store promotional or deal content for that matter) to a Facebook fan page? The answer is simple. To attract and retain “fans”, retailers must meet the needs of these shoppers. One of these key needs is to get something in return for their action of becoming a retailer’s “fan”. Namely deals, discounts and coupons. There is a certain social contract at play and it needs to be upheld. The weekly ad is a great source of localized promotions and deals that exactly meets the expectation that fans have.
“When a 1,000 “connected consumers” where surveyed in late 2009 about their digital habits and attitudes towards social media marketing, they found that promotions and discounts were primary drivers of “friending” a brand for over a third of social networking users” – recent Razorfish study
So what makes up ShopLocal’s Weekly Ad Facebook App anyways? Here are a few of the key features:
- Integration of common social Facebook features such as:
- Ability to browse localized weekly ad content by both categories and brands and sort the results of these by:
- Popularity
- Item Title
- Sale End Date
- Price
- Rich metrics of all of the user actions
- Multi-channel capabilities that enable retailers to drive traffic either back to their regular weekly ad site and/or retailer.com site
- Geo-target user location identification process that seamlessly determines the user’s nearest store location. It also offers the user a method for changing their system-derived location to a new one at any time
- View an item detail layer complete with the option to view a larger item image
Important Note: This finished, private Facebook app was not paid, approved or directed by Kohl’s. Rather Kohl’s circular content was merely selected to build and test around by the ShopLocal product development team due to its representative nature. This weekly ad Facebook app demo is just so be an example of what is possible for any given retailer. If you would like access to this private beta, all you need to do is simply become “my friend” on Facebook and I will set you up so that you can view this amazing demo app.
This is the "splash" page where the entire weekly ad experience begins. Facebook currently has a really dumb policy in place that prohibits a Flash movie from auto-running. Instead they force a rule that requires that the user to click to activate the flash experience. So this is the ONLY reason why this splash page exists.
Once the user clears the initial hurdle of activating the flash movie, the weekly ad experience comes to life. Right now, the beta app starts with all users viewing the most popular products overall, across all brands and categories.
If a user wants to more details on specific offer, a simple item detail screen is shown which allows the user to potentially buy the item online (at retailer.com), share the item as a link post with their Facebook friends or post a comment. In this case, the user is attempting to leave a comment on a specific item.
Since this user has never interacted with the weekly ad app before, there is a required and Facebook controlled popup that the user must grant the weekly ad app access to some of the personal information. This is a very standard popup that happens in nearly all Facebook apps. But all the same, it is hurdle #2 that Facebook forces us all to jump over.
Once the user has granted the weekly ad app access to their profile information, the comment can be posted. Notice for example the thumbnail image of the user now appears vs. the anonymous user image.
As a nice little feature, within the item detail area for an item, a larger image view is easily accessible.
As an alternate to browsing by category (which is the default method), the user can also choose to browse by brands at any time.
If a user decides that they want to share a specific item of interest as a "link" with their Facebook friends, they can very easily do so from within the weekly ad app. They can even write a comment to help provide some context of why they are sharing this "link".
And finally, here is how a "link" that is shared appears on the user's own wall. This is the #1 action that can cause viral spread of a weekly ad offer, since now all of the user's friends are now going to see this story within their news feed and be able to like, comment and re-share it.
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
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.
Target in it’s latest version (3.0) of their free iPhone app, has continued to make great progress in using new digital mediums to drive shoppers back in store. So instead of getting all caught up in all of the mCommerce hype, Target is staying true to their customers (they call them ‘guests’) and focusing in on the local store which means helping shoppers pre-shop by exposing what is on sale, via the ShopLocal powered weekly ad content (and underlying SmartDelivery API that powers this part of the app).
Right off the bat, the Weekly Ad content is one of two featured types of content within the iPhone app
So if a user choose to view the weekly ad content within the Target iPhone app, here is what they would see (skipping the user’s location entry screen as it is not that interesting):
Here is the main weekly ad categories that a user of the app can choose from.
Selecting the "Electronics" category, this browse results view is generated containing all of the relevant items and offers.
By selecting a specific product from the category browse results, a dedicated item detail appears with the local pricing for the user's current location.
It’s great to continue to see Target integrate the “best of what is on sale at your local store” (e.g., the content contained within the weekly ad) in all the various shopper touch points. This iPhone app has come a long way from being all about eCommerce / buying products online to being much more multi-channel and supportive of the local Target stores.
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