ShopGuru combines inaudible sound and mobile tech to reward shoppers as they enter a store

ShopGuru’s sound emitter.

It’s an app that knows exactly when you’ve walked into a store, and rewards you simply for doing so. ShopGuru, a customer loyalty mobile app, has that omnipresent quality that’s straight out of science fiction, though the technology is surprisingly simple.

The trick is in an inconspicuous device placed at the entrance of shopfronts which emits an inaudible sound. Once ShopGuru users walk past the emitter, their smartphones detects the sound pattern through the microphone, which then signals to the app to dish out reward points.

Developed by Singapore startup Rainmaker Labs, ShopGuru launched in May this year in 60 stores, but has since more than doubled to 160 retailers in Singapore. It signed up Apple reseller EpiCentre and VGO Corporation, an international fashion and sports apparel distributor which represents brands like World of Sports as well as Bread and Butter.

Promising traction

ShopGuru currently has over 20,000 registered users on its iOS and Android apps, with 60 percent of them logging in at least once a month.

Andrew Wong, co-founder of Rainmaker Labs, says that the grand plan for ShopGuru is to reward consumers for any sort of behavior. For example, users could earn points just for viewing online ads or browsing certain sections of a store. They could also get rewarded for watching video ads, since the ShopGuru platform can be engineered recognize different sounds.

ShopGuru knows that while most consumers are honest, a small minority might try to game the system. To prevent this, the app has common sense mechanisms in place. For instance, it will raise a red flag if a user checks in at one location and then appears at another store that’s far away at Superman-like speed.

With video ads, ShopGuru can work with advertisers to restrict points redemption to moments when the ads appear, in case anyone tries to record the audio and scan it indiscriminately.

ShopGuru could eventually become an ubiquitous shopping companion for users. Andrew says:

We want to be a part of consumers’ everyday spending habits. Rewards for buying petrol and groceries are stuff we could look at. We’re also exploring travel and e-commerce.

Businesses must buy in too

While easy points redemption appeals to consumers, implementing such a novel program isn’t a trivial matter for businesses.

To smoothen integration and overcome a highly-fragmented POS market, ShopGuru has a platform that is agnostic to any POS system and doesn’t require integration.

The system lets merchants scan the barcodes displayed by the ShopGuru consumer app so that users can redeem points for purchases. To make it useful for businesses, the company sends a monthly report with data on sales conversion, demographics of shoppers, as well as their behavior and preferences.

A sound plan is not enough