25 practical examples of using iBeacon technology in retail

In Russia, unfortunately, there are not many successful examples of using Apple iBeacon technology, but I see the interest of large companies (and, by the way, the technology (Google) of the Physical Web) and I'm sure that we will still hear about implementation cases in 2017 and in RF This is indirectly confirmed by the interest of retailers and regional partners (franchisees) in our letmeget.ru project , 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 part 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 you can make money with it in Russia (and I believe that, for example, the physical web has very great prospects) , I highly recommend subscribing to our youtube channel, where these issues are reviewed regularly through the prism of practical use ... For example, we share the experience of introducing physical web beacons (Google Eddystone) in shopping centers in St. Petersburg and Moscow ... By the way, in Russia, when I talk about the possibilities iBeacon, most of all interested somehow able to collect analytical data on the attendance of their stores and potential competitors :) (yes, so can you!). So…


According to the latest issue of the Unacast marketing companies directory for the 4th quarter, iBeacon technologies, i.e. placement of small sensors that act as a beacon and are used to navigate visitors among 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 launch of the largest iBeacon campaign to date 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, betting on proximal marketing campaigns based on iBeacon technologies. So let's get started:

1) Carrefour

Carrefour has an extensive network of iBeacon beacons in all of its 28 hypermarkets in Romania, through which the company offers its customers a simple, intuitive and fun application for orientation inside hypermarkets when moving from one zone to another. This beacon-based application automatically delivers content and collects basic information about the behavior of a store visitor. Proximal marketing provides the visitor with information on products, services and special offers in each department of the department store. iBeacon technologies helped Carrefour significantly increase the level of trading 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 Eat

chain of catering enterprises has joined forces with Pouch to introduce a mobile application activated by Weve beacons and containing data on a loyalty card. The app can also send push notifications to users. Such a partnership emerged as a result of the desire to allow customers to reconsider their attitude to 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 receive more information about the behavior of its customers, the analysis of which provides more accurate decisions regarding the impact on consumer behavior.

3) Meadowhall

A shopping center in Sheffield, UK, (Meadowhall Shopping Center) used iBeacon technology for gamification of the so-called Ladies' Night - an event featuring various brands offering 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 got into the coverage area of ​​such a 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 more than 500 offers were purchased. All 120 hot offers were redeemed within the first 52 minutes.

4) Hammerson

Hammerson installed iBeacon beacons in all its shopping centers in order to have more detailed and personalized information about the buying activity of its customers. Their “Plus app”, activated by the “beacons”, passed a preliminary test at Les Terrasses du Port (Marseille) and entered the top ten best lifestyle - mobile applications in France. Currently, over 80,000 customers have already downloaded it, and Hammerson has installed more than 6,000 beacons in all its shopping centers in the UK and France. The retail center insists on using this technology to send personal offers to its customers located at a specific point of the shopping center, as well as to clarify the routes of customers' movement inside the shopping center.

5) Regent Street Stores

World-famous brands like Hamleys, Armani, Longchamp and Hackett account for 80% of all retailers who have posted beacons in their stores on Ridge Street 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 new promotions of the company to exclusive offers for visitors to the store on Regent Street. Mobile applications also allow visitors to indicate their preferences, while maintaining anonymity. These brands can also make detailed profiles of customers who purchase special offers via the Internet, respond to mobile ads and visit stores.

6) Rite Aid

Rite Aid pharmacy chain has installed “beacons” in more than 4,500 stores in the US to be able to make a personalized assessment of consumer activity. Such a large-scale placement of “beacons” is the largest program of introducing iBeacon-technologies in the retail network today. In fact, they outperformed Macy's. Rite Aid plans to install beacons that will enable the creation of a digital infrastructure and connect to the warehouses of the Universal Internet of Things (IoT), as well as using iBeacon technology to collect information about visitors nearby to build a plan for changing targets and achieve the possibility of personalization, like the one already used in e-commerce.

7) Woolworths

Giant supermarket Woolworths has successfully completed the testing of “beacons” in one of its stores, using iBeacon technology to improve the quality of service for its customers using the “click-and-collect” service. Subsequently, the chain of stores announced that it was going to place beacons in all of its 254 stores that support the click-and-collect service, which would allow customers to place orders online and pick them up in one of the physical stores. For example, as soon as the user of the click-and-collect service enters a certain radius set for the store, a notification is sent to the Woolworths sampling systems. Such a notification informs the staff that it is necessary to proceed with the assembly of the order. At the next stage of order completion, the application sends a push notification to the client that his order is ready to receive.

8) Target Target

retail chain, the second largest consumer goods retailer in the United States, has announced the launch of iBeacon technology trials in 50 stores across the country. This company plans to limit the number of notifications from beacons to two push notifications for each trip to the store, so as not to bother customers too often and not cause irritation. Recommendations can be made as push notifications or as updates on the Target Run page of a mobile application, made by analogy with promotional offers in social media feeds, with a popularity rating on Pinterest, and so on. To begin, Target will test the technology in 50 of its stores in Minneapolis, Chicago, Denver, Portland, New York, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Seattle.

9) Macy’s

After successfully testing iBeacon technology in New York and San Francisco, Macy's expanded the program to cover all of its US businesses and installed more than 4,000 beacons for this. This step was caused by the retailer’s desire to increase investment in omni-channel technologies for the retail business. On Thanksgiving, Macy's also used the iBeacon gaming mobile app in 700 of its stores to attract customers. Visitors to 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 experience in the use of digital technologies with the opportunity to win a Macy's gift certificate for $ 1 million and other prizes.

10) Urban Outfitters

A little 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. The multichannel retailer of American fashion and household items decided to go different and not organize aggressive promotions. They used their own mobile app 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 areas: at the ticket office, in the changing rooms and at the entrance.

11) American Eagle Outfitters

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

12) Waitrose

Waitrose, a UK supermarket, has started using iBeacon at a relatively new experimental store in Swindon to send discount messages to customers when they are near a particular aisle or food stall. The Waitrose mobile app powered by iBeacon also allows consumers to scan barcodes, read product reviews, add products to a virtual shopping cart, and pay through a mobile wallet. Such a mobile application also allows the consumer to send a request for assistance. The employee receives such a request, and with it - information about the client and his previous purchases, which allows you to create an individual approach to resolving the issue.

13) GasBuddy

GasBuddy, a company that provides information on retail gas prices through its website and applications, has recently upgraded 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 stores at gas stations in the US and Canada. Thus, stores 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 can help determine the most sought after brands at a particular outlet.

14) Oscar Mayer

While most retailers carry out campaigns for the large-scale implementation of iBeacon, Oscar Mayer has developed an interesting partnership scheme with supermarkets that allows you to place beacons on the shelves. Such placement helps to stimulate visitors to purchase “goods of the week” while they are waiting at the box office.

15) Tesco

Tesco, the UK supermarket giant, launched the iBeacon's “largest-scale” trial with Unilever, a consumer goods company, with beacons in 270 stores across London. They launched the '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 exclusive discount coupons for Magnum Ice Cream Pink and Black on their phones.

16) McDonald’s

In search of a way to optimize personal interaction with customers, as well as promote 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, the popular application for regular customers Shopping Genie was chosen, which was activated when the owner of the smartphone entered the McDonald's restaurant. Through this application, buyers received coupons for receiving a free drink from the new line when buying coffee. Such a proximal marketing campaign based on iBeacon helped McDonald's achieve 20% efficiency, because 30% of buyers who received notifications were interested in the offer.

17) Alex & Ani

Alex & Ani used iBeacon in all of its 40 stores to optimize their product layout and display. Contrary to popular misconception, “beacons” are not only for “selling” advertising, and the well-known brand of jewelry in Rhode Island used iBeacon technology in a completely different way during the trial 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 focused on collecting data for analytical research and improving the layout of retail space, which will help them increase profitability.

18) Nisa

A popular chain of convenience stores Nisa 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 movement inside the store, “beacons” are used in a compartment with sensors located on the ceiling of the store. 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 near certain shelves with 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 points of Hudson's Bay. The network 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% for some products with a special "open source", which is used to track 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, New York's largest pharmacy chain owned by Walgreens, uses iBeacon in ten of its stores to increase customer loyalty. Walgreens began to use “beacons” to send out notifications of 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 network of upscale retail stores, has launched a test version of the “beacons” in three of its stores — Austin, TX, Walnut Creek, California, and San Antonio. They focused on promoting the events held in the store, such as private shows, meetings with designers, autograph sessions, etc. ... Such notifications inform the buyer about the time of the events and their format at the moment when he is in the store.

22) Best Buy

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

23) Walmart

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

24) Kenneth Cole

Kenneth Cole uses iBeacon technology to organize a more attractive and personalized customer service, so that “the value of a service or offer lies in timeliness, that is, it is necessary to offer at the moment when the buyer is inside the store. " The retailer noted a significant increase in the use of the application and an increase in sales after the introduction of iBeacon technology.

25) Nordstrom

Seattle-based retailer Nordstrom uses iBeacon technology to “erase the boundaries” between real and virtual shopping. Their mobile application, activated by “beacons”, transmits to the consumer a signal about the availability of goods from his online basket at the moment when the consumer passes near the store where such a “beacon” is installed. In this way, Nordstrom makes it easy for its visitors to use the online store along with visits to real points of sale.

If you know of other interesting, but not mentioned in the article, proximal marketing campaigns, please share with us in the comments :) We very much believe in the prospects of iBeacon and added it in support of our mobile app builder appropio.comso that even small companies can take and try the technology in action!