Prospecting: Sears Drives Traffic to its Stores With Social Gaming Technology

Sears has driven new traffic to its brick-and-mortar locations by partnering with SCVNGR, a social gaming and check-in service.

Here's how the partnership works: While in a Sears store, consumers can pull out their smartphone, launch the SCVNGR app and check in to the Sears location they're currently at. These consumers then create a profile and begin participating in various challenges. For example, Sears' fitness and footwear department's challenge reads: "Tread Softly: Make yourself at home in the shoe aisle and find the coolest tread. Snap a photo and then caption it with where you want to leave your mark in the world!"

Another challenge is called "Artistic Shoes," which encourages players to take a picture of three different colored shoes next to each other. The third and final challenge is to post an answer to the following question: "If you could walk in your new pair of shoes anywhere in the world, where would you go?"

Once players have completed all the challenges, they earn points and receive rewards to redeem at Sears. With 3,648 challenges completed, 2,736 rewards redeemed and 11,596 points earned since April of this year (as of press time), it looks like the campaign is catching on.

"SCVNGR's game platform presents a huge opportunity for retailers looking to drive consumers to specific areas of their stores," said Chris Mahl, senior vice president and chief brand alchemist at SCVNGR, in a company press release. "It gets them interacting with products and rewards them for having a good time."

The SCVNGR app helps create customer loyalty as well by offering bigger discounts to those who complete more challenges and earn more rewards points.

"Sears is all about creating a positive, fun and rewarding shopping experience for our customers," said Nick Grayston, senior vice president and president of Sears Footwear, in the SCVNGR release. "We're leading the next wave of shopping innovation by offering the latest mobile apps and location technologies to help our customers get the best deals while they're at our stores."