Shopkick

Whether you are an early holiday-shopper or a frequent visitor to your local mall, you will hardly ever see your favorite stores hand money to you for simply visiting them.  Sure, they may offer you discounts that will make your mouth water, but rarely will you see a store pay you for walking in and not buying anything.

Until now…

Introducing Shopkick, the most fun way to window shop you never knew existed.  Shopkick is an app that does the unthinkable: it rewards you for setting foot in participating stores, even though you do not make a purchase.  I know, crazy right?

Before you head out the door, let me share with you how Shopkick rewards its users.  Using the GPS on your Smartphone, Shopkick will recognize when you have entered one the many stores that are participating with the app, but you must have the app open, your GPS and, of course, internet enabled on your mobile device.  Depending on the day and store, you can earn anywhere from a dime to a dollar for just walking in. 

But wait, it doesn’t end there.  If you actually like the store, you can stick around for a little longer and go on a little money-making scavenger hunt.  Using the app’s built-in CPU reader, you can scan the barcode of selected items on the Shopkick app to maximize the return for your visit.  Certain stores can pay around 50 cents just to scan a single item.  Imagine how much you can make by scanning the 10-15 items stores like Target ask you to scan at times.

I am the typical guy who does not like shopping. On occasion, however, I look forward to the times where I can let my wife loose in the store, and I can begin my quest to obtain Shopkick gift card of choice.  You won’t know until you try it…it could change your shopping life!

You may even be on the opposite end of the spectrum of guys like me where you actually go window shopping (Shopkick in hand) and decide you are going to buy something.  Why not link your credit card to Shopkick and get even more from your visit?

Imagine this scenario: you walk into the store (ding), you get paid.  You scan a few items (ding, ding, ding), and you get paid again.  Lastly, you decide to buy that game, snack, or blouse, and (ding) you can get paid for that as well!  It must be said, the “kicks” you gain from purchasing are subject to the turnaround time of their return policy.  You know, so as to prevent you sly ones from purchasing an item, getting the points, and returning those items the next day.  Shame on you for thinking that!

On that note, I want to warn you that scanning barcodes from a website and not on the actual product may get you in some trouble with Shopkick.  I’ve thought of trying this myself, but after a few scans, you get an email from Shopkick where they warn you to ceases and desist or your account will get deleted.  So, try to play fair.

 

Shopkick is really a great app for the whole family!  I’ve actually had my whole family try it one time, and we had a blast with the scavenger hunt portion of the app.  Plus, we all got paid to do so.

So the next time you’re thinking of going to the store, don’t forget to register for Shopkick before you walk in!