Frequent consumer feedback about style and taste is invaluable to retailers striving to gauge customer preference and product demand across channels.
Tip or Skip, a mobile shopping game launched July 2012 from a start-up by the same name, combines social discovery, gamification and mobile commerce in a “social merchandising” game in which players freely offer this vital product preference feedback.
Players, or tipsters, engage with the game app to earn rewards for discovering and sharing products from online and brick-and-mortar stores. As they engage with a multitude of product images, tipsters “tip” what they like and “skip” what they don’t. The more tipsters play, the more “sway” (game currency) they earn. Their tips help other consumers find new products and make smarter buying decisions. Tipsters compete for recognition as they spot and share the best products, and earn more sway as other players agree with their tips ― all as feedback builds for retail brands.
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Tipsters’ insights allow retailers to gauge demand for current and/or potential offerings, reflected in Tip or Skip product popularity analytics. Also based on gaming data, merchants can offset showrooming by sending push alerts to tipsters as they near a physical store location selling the products they’ve tipped. Merchants can send offers just to consumers who have tipped their products; become a suggested retailer for users to follow; and gain broader distribution for their products.
“As mobile phones rapidly transforms all aspects of consumer behavior, including discovering, researching and buying products, Tip or Skip is the first mobile experience designed to combine all these elements for shoppers,” said Michael Weiksner, CEO of Tip or Skip. “The game enables retailers to benefit from the mobile transformation with a unique ‘social merchandising’ platform that offers direct product feedback from countless consumers while helping merchants drive sales, both online and in stores.”
As of September 18, 2012, less than two months from its launch date, Tip or Skip has enticed more than 1,200,000 rounds of the mobile shopping game.
