TL;DR: Shopkick is a fantastic rewards app that has some great reward offerings and promotions. You can earn money simply from walking around stores and scanning items from retail partner brands.
Several retail joints have programs that reward customers for their buying behavior. But here is the kicker: you can actually earn valuable rewards just from perusing items. Shopkick is a relatively new shopping rewards app that gives you gift cards and other promotional offers just for scanning items in the store.
All of this sounds well and good on paper, but how well does Shopkick actually work? We will answer that and many other questions in our Shopkick app review.
EARNING STYLE
Earn Points (Kicks)
OPPORTUNITIES
Earn by watching videos, checking in to locations and more.
REDEEM
Redeem through Paypal or for gift cards.
What Is Shopkick?
Shopkick is a location-based app you can download to your smartphone to earn reward points and gift cards from participating retailers. The unique part of Shopkick is that you can pick up these rewards without actually having to spend any money. In fact, all you have to do is walk into a store and scan products.That’s it, no purchases necessary.
In other words, Shopkick is basically a rewards program except it applies to most vendors out there. Shopkick was founded back in 2009 and has since given away over $85 million in gift cards and rewards.
How Does Shopkick Work?
Shopkick lets you earn points (called “kicks”) by checking in at certain locations. Whenever you open the app and turn location services on, the app will display nearby stores that are offering kicks. You can get kicks just for walking in the store
Shopkick doesn’t only give you kicks for checking either. You can get points for the following things:
- Walking into the store
- Scanning items
- Scanning receipts
- Linking a card to the app
- Watching videos
- Referring friends to Shopkick
- And more
So as you can see, there are a ton of opportunities to earn kicks that require little to no effort. The more kicks you earn, the more items you can redeem them for, such as gift cards, restaurant vouchers, movie tickets, and more. You may even pick up some exclusive store discounts and incentives.
How Many Partners Does Shopkick Have?
Shopkick claims they have over 250,000 brand partners in retail locations around the country butIt is tough to pin down an exact number as Shopkick is constantly rotating partner brands. Some brands that they have either worked with in the past or are currently working with include Best Buy, Target, Kroger, TJ Maxx, Macy’s and Crate & Barrel. So, regardless of where you are, it is likely that you can find a participating retailer.
Perhaps the most useful stores Shopkick partners with are grocery stores. Shopkick grocery partners will give you extra rewards for scanning coupons and barcodes on items. Shopkick’s list of brand partners has only gotten larger since 2009 and continues to expand.
How Fast Can I Earn Rewards?
Shopkick probably has one of the easiest to use rewards programs that we have ever seen. Simply walking by retail brand partners can net you up to 50-60 kicks Scanning items can get you another 100 or so kicks. When we tried the app, we were able to rack up almost 400 kicks (about $1.60 in rewards) just by walking around partner brands for a few hours .
Visiting stores and scanning items is not the only way to earn kicks though. Shopkick partners will also give “kickbacks” for making purchases at their store with a linked payment method. You can also get 250 kicks just for referring a friend to the app.
If you are really hustling and visiting stores on the daily, it’s not too much of a stretch to make at least $5 a week in gift cards and other rewards. With thousands of retail partners around the country, it is extremely easy to find a good spot to build up kicks while you are out and about your day.
Now to be clear, you won’t be making a ton of money in rewards. But considering how much effort you have to put in, getting rewards from Shopkick is virtually automatic.
What Kind of Rewards Can I Get with Shopkick?
The vast majority of Shopkick rewards are gift cards and promotional coupons. For example, you can get gift cards to Best Buy, Amazon, American Eagle, eBay, GameStop, and several other popular retailers.
However, you can also get things like promotional offers from brand partners and the like. Shopkick brands will occasionally give special deals and discounts. For example, one store might temporarily offer 15% off all store purchases when you buy with a Shopkick-linked payment method.
So, if you love collecting gift cards, the Shopkick is the perfect app for you.
How Do I Redeem Kicks for Rewards?
Whenever you have the app on and partake in a reward behavior, the app automatically keeps track of how many kicks you have. From the app’s main menu, you can browse what kind of reward offerings are available. Simply click on the reward that you want and click on “redeem kicks” at the bottom of the screen.
From there, all your gift cards and other rewards will be stored on the app. Stores can scan your gift cards directly from your phone so you don’t need to worry about physical cards and such. And that is all there is to it!
How Does Shopkick Make Money?
Just to reiterate: Shopkick is 100% free to use. You don’t have to subscribe to anything and you don’t have to link any payment methods to the app (although you can link a payment method to get more kicks).
You are probably wondering them: How does Shopkick make money?
Shopkick actually makes its money by charging vendors for their services. Think about it: apps like Shopkick are excellent for businesses to spread their brand and products. You can almost think of Shopkick as like a marketing service for business. By working with the company and offering good rewards, the app incentivizes traffic and purchases from their partners.
The upshot is that users do not have to pay a single cent to use Shopkick but get all the benefits from rewards. Like we said, you don’t actually even have to buy anything to build up reward points.
Is Shopkick Legit?
Unilaterally and unequivocally; Yes, Shopkick is 100% legit and is not a scam in any way, shape, or form. They won’t steal your money and you won’t be assaulted by endless pop ups and spam mail. You are never required to enter any payment information in the app so if you are uncomfortable linking one of your debit cards, you do not have to and can still benefit from the rewards program.
You don’t have to take it from us though. Shopkick has thousands of extremely positive reviews on both the Apple Store and Google Play Store. If those are any indication to go by, then Shopkick is most certainly worth your time and effort.
Conclusions
So, do we recommend Shopkick? Absolutely, yes. If you are looking for an easy way to rack up reward points with companies, then there are very few apps that match Shopkick on that front. Shopkick gets you access to gift cards and rewards from thousands of brand partners nationwide. The best part is that you don’t have to pay a single cent to use the app. So we highly recommend Shopkick.
