25 practical examples of using iBeacon technology in retail

In Russia, unfortunately, there are not so many successful examples of using the Apple iBeacon technology, but I see the interest of large companies (and, by the way, the technology of (Google) Physical Web) and I am sure that we will hear more about implementation cases in 2017 and in RF. This is indirectly confirmed by the interest of retailers and regional partners (franchisees) to our project letmeget.ru , which uses geo-location technologies (ibeacon / geofencing / physical web) to attract new customers in the location (the next publication will be about our experience with this project in iBeacon).

Below are the 25 “live” examples mentioned in the heading, and for those who want to get more information about how this technology works, how it can be earned in Russia (and I believe that, for example, the physical web has very great prospects) I strongly advise you to subscribe to our youtube channel, where these issues are reviewed regularly through the prism of practical use ... For example, we share our experience in implementing the physical web (Google Eddystone) beacons in St. Petersburg and Moscow shopping centers ... By the way, in Russia, when I talk about opportunities iBeacon, most people interested somehow able to collect analytical data on the attendance of their stores and potential competitors :) (yes, so can you!). So…
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According to the latest issue of the Unacast marketing campaign directory for the 4th quarter, iBeacon technologies are gaining increasing popularity, i.e. placement of small sensors that perform the functions of a beacon and are used to navigate visitors among the shelves with products. These data coincide with the forecast of the research company ABI Research, according to which by 2020 the number of installed “beacons” will reach 400 million. Last year, we witnessed the large-scale introduction of iBeacon technologies by the largest brands, and in the new year Rite Aid already managed to announce the start of the most ambitious iBeacon today - a campaign in the retail sector. In the light of such events, we have compiled and present to our readers a list of the 25 largest retailers who have relied on proximal marketing campaigns based on iBeacon technologies. So let's get started:

1) Carrefour

Carrefour has an extensive iBeacon beacon network in all of its 28 hypermarkets in Romania, through which the company offers its customers a simple, intuitive and fun app for navigating within hypermarkets when moving from one area to another. This application, which works with the help of the “beacon”, automatically delivers content and collects basic information about the behavior of the visitor who is in the store. Proximal marketing provides the visitor with information about products, services, and special offers in each departmental department store. iBeacon-technology helped Carrefour significantly increase the level of business contacts by expanding the use of such mobile applications (by 400%), and the number of application users grew by 600% in seven months.



2) Eat Eat

The catering network Eat has joined forces with Pouch to implement a mobile application that is activated by “beacons” Weve and contains information about a regular customer card. The application can also send push notifications to users. Such a partnership emerged as a result of the desire to allow customers to reconsider their attitude towards shopping, both in the store and in the virtual space. Eat promoted this innovation as a “strategic basis” for its communications, as it allowed the company to obtain more information about the behavior of its customers, whose analysis provides for more accurate decisions regarding the impact on consumer behavior.

3) Meadowhall

A shopping center in Sheffield, UK, (Meadowhall Shopping Center), used iBeacon-technology to gamify the so-called Ladies' Night - an event involving various brands that offer special offers, discounts, free promotions and valuable gifts. Among the participants were many famous retailers: Hotel Chocolat, Krispy Kreme, Cath Kidston, and House of Fraser. Clients had to download the Meadowhall mobile application activated by the “beacon”, after which, when they entered the zone of the beacon, they received a message on their smartphone. This event was a huge success: during the first three hours the application was downloaded more than 500 times, as a result of which more than 500 offers were purchased. All 120 “hot” offers were redeemed within the first 52 minutes. Meadowhall also received the Purple Apple award for strategic marketing using “fender” Bluetooth beacons for mobile phones.

4) Hammerson

Hammerson installed iBeacon beacons in all of its shopping centers in order to have more detailed and personalized information about the purchasing activity of its customers. Their app “Plus app”, activated by “beacons”, passed a preliminary test at Les Terrasses du Port (Marseille) and entered the top ten of the best lifestyle-mobile apps in France. Currently, over 80,000 customers have already loaded it, and Hammerson has installed over 6,000 beacons in all of its shopping centers in the UK and France. The retail center insists on using such technology to send out personal offers to its customers at a certain point in the shopping center, as well as to clarify the routes for customers to travel within the shopping center.

5) Shops at Regent Street

World-famous brands such as Hamleys, Armani, Longchamp and Hackett account for 80% of all retailers who have placed "beacons" in their stores on Ridget Street in order to send exclusive and personal push-notifications to their customers using iBeacon-technologies. Passing by, buyers receive notifications with specially selected commercial content about everything, from the company's new promotions to exclusive offers for visitors to the Regent Street store. Mobile applications also allow visitors to specify their preferences, while maintaining anonymity. These brands can also create detailed profiles of customers purchasing special offers through the Internet, responding to mobile advertising and visiting stores.

6) Rite Aid

The Rite Aid pharmacy chain has set up “beacons” in more than 4,500 stores in the United States in order to be able to make a personalized assessment of customer activity. Such a large-scale deployment of "beacons" is the largest program for the introduction of iBeacon-technologies in the retail network today. In fact, they outperformed Macy's. Rite Aid plans to install beacons that will create a digital infrastructure and connect to the Universal Internet of Things (IoT) warehouses, as well as using iBeacon technology to gather information about nearby visitors to build a plan for changing targets and achieving personalization capabilities like the one already applied in e-commerce.

7) Woolworths

The giant Woolworths supermarket successfully completed the “beacon” tests in one of its stores, using iBeacon-technology to improve the quality of customer service using the click-and-collect service. Subsequently, the chain of stores announced that it was going to place "beacons" in all its 254 stores supporting the click-and-collect service, which would allow customers to place orders online and pick them up at one of the physical stores. For example, as soon as the user of the click-and-collect service enters a certain radius established for a store, a notification is sent to the Woolworths sampling systems. Such notification informs the staff that it is necessary to proceed to the assembly of the order At the next stage of the order execution, the application sends a push notification to the client that his order is ready to be received.

8) Target

Target, the second largest consumer goods retailer in the United States, announced the launch of iBeacon-technology tests in 50 stores across the country. This company plans to limit the number of beacon notifications to two push notifications for each trip to the store, so as not to disturb customers too often and not cause irritation. Recommendations can be submitted as push notifications or as updates on the Target Run page of a mobile application made similarly to advertising offers in social network news feeds, with a popularity rating on Pinterest, and so on. For starters, Target will test technology in 50 of its stores in Minneapolis, Chicago, Denver, Portland, New York, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Seattle.

9) Macy’s

After successful testing of iBeacon-technologies in New York and San Francisco, Macy's expanded the program, covering all its enterprises in the USA and setting up more than 4,000 “beacons” for this. Such a move was caused by the aspirations of the retailer to increase investment in omni-channel technology for the retail business. On Thanksgiving, Macy's also used a gaming mobile app launched via iBeacon in 700 of its stores to attract customers. Visitors to the stores received push notifications activated by beacons installed in the near radius throughout the store. Such notifications encouraged them to participate in the exchange of digital technologies with the opportunity to win a Macy's gift certificate for $ 1 million and other prizes.

10) Urban Outfitters

Just over a year ago, Urban Outfitters announced that they would install “beacons” in 15 stores in Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Atlanta, New Jersey and Delaware. Multichannel Retailer of American fashion items and housewares decided to go different and not to arrange aggressive promotions. They used their own mobile application with beacons, developed as part of the Urban customer loyalty program, including a section that allows customers to receive bonuses and access to special events. In addition, they focused on the use of beacons in three zones: at the box office, in the fitting rooms and at the entrance.

11) American Eagle Outfitters

American Eagle Outfitters (AEO), together with Shopkick, launched iBeacon-based networks in more than 100 of the most profitable stores located in Chicago, Dallas, Miami, New York and San Francisco. The idea was to implement iBeacon-technology in retail locations that have the highest throughput and the best support Shopkick.

12) Waitrose

British Waitrose Supermarket started using iBeacon at a relatively new experimental store in Swindon to send discount messages to customers when they were near a certain passage or near a food counter. The iBeacon mobile app Waitrose also allows consumers to scan barcodes, read product reviews, add products to the virtual shopping basket and pay via a mobile wallet. This mobile application also allows the consumer to send a request for assistance. The employee receives such a request, and along with it - information about the client and his previous purchases, which allows him to form an individual approach to resolving the issue.

13) GasBuddy

GasBuddy, a company that provides information on retail prices for gasoline through its website and applications, recently modernized this service, giving retailers and brands the opportunity to send promotional offers to customers at gas stations. To this end, GasBuddy decided to install BLE-beacons in 150,000 shops at petrol stations in the United States and Canada. Thus, shops and manufacturing companies will be able to obtain information on consumer behavior, which is extremely useful in conducting business analysis. For example, the data collected may help identify the most sought-after brands at a particular outlet.

14) Oscar Mayer

While most retailers are campaigning for large-scale implementation of iBeacon, Oscar Mayer has developed an interesting affiliate scheme with supermarkets, allowing you to place beacons on the shelves. This placement helps to encourage visitors to purchase “goods of the week” while they are waiting at the box office.

15) Tesco

Tesco, the British supermarket giant, launched the “most ambitious” test of iBeacon in conjunction with consumer products company Unilever, placing “beacons” in 270 stores throughout London. They launched the app 'Mpulse app' as part of the Pink and Black marketing campaign. After downloading this mobile application, consumers, passing by the beacons installed in 270 Tesco Express stores, received on their phones exclusive discount coupons for Magnum Pink and Black ice cream.

16) McDonald’s

In search of ways to optimize personal interaction with customers, as well as promoting a new line of coffee drinks, McDonald’s also decided to try out proximal marketing based on iBeacon-technologies in 16 restaurants in Istanbul. To implement the program, a popular application in Turkey for regular customers, Shopping Genie, was chosen, which was activated when the owner of the smartphone entered McDonald’s restaurant. Through this application, buyers received coupons to receive a free drink from the new line when buying coffee. Such a proximal iBeacon-based marketing campaign helped McDonald’s achieve 20% efficiency, as 30% of the notified buyers were interested in the offer.

17) Alex & Ani

Alex & Ani used iBeacon in all its 40 stores to optimize the trading layout and place products on the shop windows. Contrary to popular misconceptions, “beacons” are not only for “selling” advertising, and the well-known jewelry brand on Rhode Island has completely differently used iBeacon-technology during the test period: no mobile advertising, no promotions. Instead, the retailer used beacons to inform consumers about jewelry. 30% of consumers who saw such notifications visited the store. The brand has focused on collecting data for analytical studies and improving the layout of retail space, which will help them improve profitability.

18) Nisa

Nisa, a popular chain of convenience stores, has begun testing iBeacon-technology designed to monitor the movement of customers using BLE beacons mounted on carts and shopping baskets. To track the visitor's travel routes inside the store, “beacons” are used in a compartment with sensors located on the store's ceiling. Such sensors receive signals emitted by "beacons", and thus collect information about the location of the visitor. Then this information is transmitted for analysis through the "cloud" server. Retailers can use a similar scheme to obtain information such as the total time spent by the buyer in the store, or the time spent around certain shelves of goods.

19) Lord & Taylor

Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), which owns the Lord & Taylor brand, has already installed "beacons" in 50 Lord & Taylor stores in the United States and at 90 locations of Hudson's Bay. The network has placed separate "beacons" for different advertising campaigns for each department, which helps to attract the attention of the buyer and interest him. In some departments, the visitor receives a discount coupon - up to 70% on some products with a special "open source", which is used to monitor the effectiveness of iBeacon-technology.

20) Walgreens

Walgreens significantly improved their retail space by using iBeacon and other innovative technologies in 7,000 outlets. Duane Reade, the largest pharmacy chain in New York owned by Walgreens, uses iBeacon in ten of its stores to increase customer loyalty. Walgreens began to use "beacons" to send special offers to passing visitors and to issue coupons. They also expanded the possibilities of working with notifications through the application: using the application, the user can print photos from Instagram or fill out a recipe form in automatic mode.

21) Neiman Marcus

Neiman Marcus, a chain of high-end retail stores, launched a test version of the “beacons” in its three stores —Austin, TX, Walnut Creek, (California), and San Antonio. They focused on promoting in-store events, such as private shows, meetings with designers, autograph sessions, etc ... Such notifications inform the buyer about the time of the events and their format while it is in the store.

22) Best Buy

Best Buy has introduced iBeacon technology to drive sales and personalize customer care. The giant retail chain has chosen to use its own mobile application along with the Shopkick application, to send special bonuses to all visitors who enter the store. With Best Buy, the goal was not to promote specific products through promotional notifications.

23) Walmart

Walmart conducted a unique experiment with iBeacon-technology with the participation of GE. The retail giant used GE LED lamps to place "beacons", as well as to send push-notifications of special promotions and discount coupons for customers who entered the store. LED lights, equipped with "beacons", are able to track visitors inside the store thanks to embedded technology iBeacon.For such stores, this eliminates the need to purchase separate technical devices for the installation of beacons.

24) Kenneth Cole

Kenneth Cole uses iBeacon technology to organize a more compelling and personalized customer service so that “the value of a service or offer is timeliness, i.e. It is necessary to offer at that moment when the buyer is inside the store. ” The retailer noted a significant increase in application usage and an increase in sales after the introduction of iBeacon technology.

25) Nordstrom

Nordstrom, a Seattle-based retailer, uses iBeacon technology to “blur the boundaries” between real and virtual shopping. Their mobile application, activated by "beacons", sends a signal to the consumer about the presence in the assortment of goods from his online basket at the moment when the consumer passes next to the store where such a "beacon" is installed. Thus, Nordstrom makes it easy for its visitors to use the online store, along with visiting real sales points.

If you know other interesting, but not mentioned, marketing campaigns based on proximal marketing, please share with us in the comments :) We strongly believe in the perspectives of iBeacon and added it in support of our mobile application designer appropio.com so that even small companies can take and try technology in action!