Almost 1.6 billion coupons will be delivered annually to consumers via beacon technology by 2020, says Juniper Research. The figure is an increase of more than 14,400% on 2015’s 11 million.
Click to enlargeIn-store beacons – now being used by several retailers worldwide, including Macy’s – are consistently generating high redemption rates. Juniper’s research (http://tinyurl.com/ot5rsvl) cites the Chinese jewellery chain CTF (Chow Tai Fook); a campaign earlier this year saw rates approach 60%, resulting in a sales increase of $16 million.
The growth of contactless infrastructure, and growing consumer awareness of NFC (thanks to Apple Pay), is forecast to lead to ‘significant’ opportunities for proximity marketing in the medium term.
Research author Windsor Holden said, “As contactless usage accelerates at [the] point of sale, retailers will then move to incorporate NFC at all stages of the customer lifecycle, including loyalty and engagement”.
Juniper warns that the use of beacon technology is still a work in progress. Retailers are concerned that excessive and indiscriminate messages pushed by beacons could be seen as intrusive, and damage the relationship with customers. Juniper suggests that retailers follow the lead of Target, which has said that it will limit push notifications to two per visit.
A whitepaper (http://tinyurl.com/za38vvx) is free to download now.
Analyst Comment
As I mentioned, after MWC, which used beacons a fair amount, I went off the idea, as the systems kept interrupting with the same messages as I went past the same place multiple times. I still think that the technique is very powerful – the CTF story reinforces this – but needs to be used very carefully and thoughtfully. As we reported from Gitex, LG is including the low cost beacon technology into its mid-range and high end digital signage displays. (LG Has Lots of News on UNB, LED and Beacons .. and WebOS …. and….) (BR)
