Nielsen ranks Shopkick top real-world shopping mobile app

While Shopkick came fourth among all shopping apps - behind Amazon, eBay, and Groupon - it tops real-world shopping apps because, of the four, it is the only one that can be used in a physical store. Among all 1 million mobile apps used in the 2012 holiday shopping season, Shopkick ranked as 34th.

Not only has Shopkick topped the rankings for numbers of users, it also comes top for the most time spent in-app per month (2 hours, 37 minutes), the number of sessions per month (22) and the amount of time spent per session (7 minutes). These stats top those of branded retail apps from the likes of Starbucks, Walmart, Walgreens, and Safeway.

Shopkick works with retailers such as Target and Macy's, and brands including Kraft Foods and Proctor & Gamble. When a Shopkick user enters a store, the app detects a signal picked up by the microphone on the mobile device, and delivers cross-retailer rewards known as "kicks". Shoppers can also earn kicks for scanning products in-store, browsing content and for completing purchases.

The latest version of Shopkick, launched last October, took just 3 months to hit 1 billion viewed products, a milestone that previously took the company 18 months to reach. Users now look at 100 or more products per day on Shopkick, a huge jump from the 5-8 products viewed per user six months ago.

"Mobile is redefining the physical retail world. It is on its way to become the No. 1 marketing tool for retailers and brands, because it is the only interactive medium consumers have with them in the non-interactive physical world, especially at stores. Companies that don't embrace that are being left behind," said Cyriac Roeding , co-founder and CEO of Shopkick. "It's the perfect way for retailers and brands to touch shoppers at each point in the purchase cycle -from research through browsing, to purchase."

Tags: brand marketing, branded apps, bricks and mortar, in-store, loyalty, mobile app, mobile marketing, retail apps, retail industry, rewards