ShopKick Review – Is It Worth Signing Up For?

[Shop Kick gives you 2,500 free kicks ($10) for each friend you refer. Instead of posting our own link we will allow our readers to leave helpful comments with their referral link. Comments which are just the link or provide no value will be removed. We also did something similar for Plink]

ShopKick is a mobile app based loyalty program that gives you points (known as kicks) for visiting stores and scanning specific items. At the time of writing there are 6,000,000 people who have downloaded shop kick for their mobile device. It’s currently available on android and iphone devices.

ShopKick will also let you know of specials that a store is currently having, some of which are shop kick only specials. They also show you which stores are participating and how far away each store is and how many kicks you’ll receive for entering the store. ShopKick makes money on the premise that when a business gets a customer inside a store they are able to sell them products they might not have otherwise purchased. They charge businesses to get additional customers in the store and then give some of this money back to consumers through the application.

How To Earn Kicks

You can earn kicks a few different ways:

• Entering a store: Stores that are partnered with shop kick will pay you 30-100 kicks to enter their store. Usually you need to wait near the entrance for a few seconds with your shopkick application open to earn the points

• Scan specific items: Stores will also pay you to scan specific items with your shop kick app. Generally you’ll get 10 kicks per scan and can scan multiple items per store (although usually these items aren’t very close together)

• Purchase an item: You can also earn kicks by purchasing items from participating stores. The exact amount of kicks you’ll earn is dependent on the item you’re buying and from what store.

• Surprises: You can earn kicks by looking through the look books of each participating store and you’ll “randomly” earn points on different pages.

• Refer friends: You’ll earn half the kicks any people you refer earns within their first two weeks of account use. Up to a maximum of 2,500 points.
• Link your credit card: When you link one of your credit cards you’ll receive up to 200 bonus kicks.

Redeeming Kicks

Kicks can be redeemed at the rewards mall for gift cards and items. In general 1 kick = 0.4¢, this means you’ll need 1,250 kicks to be able to redeem for a $5 gift card. The redemption rate will be slightly different for items, but your best value is usually gotten from redeeming for gift cards. The minimum you can redeem for is $2 or 500 kicks. They offer the following gift cards:

• Target gift cards (starting at $2 or 500 kicks)
• Aerie gift card (starting at $5 or 1,250 kicks)
• American eagle gift card (starting at $2 or 500 kicks)
• Arden B. gift card (starting at $5 or 1,250 kicks)
• Fandango gift card (starting at $10 or 2,500 kicks)
• Game stop gift card (starting at $5 or 1,250 kicks)
• Papa johns gift card (starting at $5 or 1,250 kicks)
• Sports authority gift card (starting at $5 or 1,250 kicks)
• Toys ‘R’ Us gift card (starting at $5 or 1,250 kicks)
• iTunes gift card (starting at $10 or 2,500 kicks)
• Lowe’s gift card (starting at $10 or 2,500 kicks)
• Nike gift card (starting at $10 or 2,500 kicks)
• Sephora gift card (starting at $10 or 2,500 kicks)
• Old navy gift card (starting at $10 or 2,500 kicks)
• 1-800 flowers gift card (starting at $25 or 6,250 kicks)
• Customized gas gift cards (starting at $10 or 3,400 kicks, note this values your kicks at 0.29¢ each instead of the usual 0.4¢)
• Restaurant.com gift card (starting at $25 or 875 kicks this values your kicks at 2.87¢ each – but restaurant.com gift cards are easily purchased for 20% of their face value)
• Shutterfly gift card (starting at $25 or 6,250 kicks)

• Best Buy gift card (starting at $5 or 1,250 kicks)
• Macy’s gift card (starting at $5 or 1,250 kicks)
• Starbucks gift card (starting at $5 or 1,250 kicks)
• Coach gift card (starting at $300 or 75,000 kicks)
• Kate spade gift card (starting at $300 or 75,000 kicks)
• Tiffy & co (starting at $300 or 75,000 kicks)

Our Verdict

At most you’re going to get 40¢ per store you walk into. This certainly isn’t going to make you rich any time soon, for those with a lot of free time you might find this worth whiled. Most people will only find value on this if they are able to generate large amounts of shopkick points for purchases that they’d usually make anyway. I think the only way I’ll actually use this app is if I can find a participating store that I’m already using as part of my manufacturing spending strategy.

I’ve gone ahead and installed this application on my phone, but I honestly don’t know when I’ll use it next. I’ll update this page in the next month or two with any progress I’ve made.

Shop Kick Resources:

• Shop kick tips tumblr blog: Tells you which pages all of the surprises are on and various other tips

Know of any other useful resources for shop kick? Let us know in the comments.

Other similar programs:

• Plink
• Visa Savings Edge
• MasterCard Easy Savings
• American Express OPEN Savings