Shopkick

When I started this blog, the intent was to share my weight loss journey, but to also share other things about my life that might be helpful to other people. Lately, I've been too busy to share anything other than my workouts, but I'm going to make an effort to share more than just my workouts. This post is about Shopkick. I thought I had written this already, but I can't seem to find a post about it, so I guess I never did.

What it is and why I use it?

Shopkick is an app that allows you to earn kicks (points) for doing things like walking into stores, scanning barcodes of items in the grocery store, looking at "ads" and buying stuff. The points can be redeemed for gift cards to popular stores. I use it because it's super simple and you can get some decent rewards for little effort. It's one of the few rewards programs that I'm still using. I've pretty much given up on CheckPoints, Receipt Hog, Swagbucks, Checkout 51, Kiip Rewards, and mPoints. 

How to Earn Kicks

Walk Ins

You can earn points by walking into a store. On a normal day, you earn around 30 points, which doesn't sound like much, but it's 30 points for walking into a store that you would already have gone into. That's pretty cool!  You usually just have to open the app at the entrance of the store and then a blue bubble will show up. First it says Hi to you and uses your name. Then it will show the points that you earned. You can earn points for walking into the same store twice in a 7 day period I believe. On the weekends or around holidays, there are bonus walk in points. For example, there have been several times where I got 100 points or more for walking into Best Buy, and they are normally a 30 point store. If you have certain notification settings turned on, you'll get an alert letting you know that you're close to a store that has bonus walk in points available. This comes in handy when you're out and about doing your normal shopping. You might not have intended to go to American Eagle or Old Navy, but you're in the same parking lot since you're visiting a different store. You get an alert about a bonus, so you walk the extra 20 feet and get some bonus points! I love bonus points!

Scan Items

You've got to go grocery shopping anyway, so you might as well get points for it. Once you're in the store, you can see a list of items you can scan and get points. You just find the item in the store and scan the UPC barcode. Sometimes you only get 15 points, but I've gotten 250 points before for scanning stuff. One trip was extra lucrative. I was able to scan 6 or 7 items all in the same aisle and they were all 100 points each! 

Purchasing Items

You can link a Visa or MasterCard to your account and earn points for buying stuff. It only works on stores that are set up to have it. I haven't used the credit card link because I don't shop at the stores that use it, but if you shop at Macy's, American Eagle, Old Navy, and Carter's, you might want to check it out. You earn 1 kick per $1.00 spent. Imagine the possibilities of combining ShopKick with a rewards credit card that gives at least 1% back for purchases and you could be rolling in the dough for buying stuff that you already were going to buy. You also get bonus kicks the more you spend. For example, at Macy's you get 200 extra kicks if you spend $50, 375 extra kicks if you spend $75, and 650 extra kicks if you spend $125.

Best Buy also has a way to earn kicks for buying stuff, but you don't have to link a credit care. All you do is show the checker your phone and they scan a code in the app. Best Buy also has bonus kicks for spending more money. You get 350 extra kicks for $75, 800 extra kicks for $150 and 1250 extra kicks for $200. 

Looking at "Ads"

At the bottom right of the app, there's a picture of a shirt and it says Products under it. If you click that, you'll get to the ads. It's not described that way in the app. I forget what they call them, but they are ads. It's not like a commercial ad or even a newspaper ad type thing, but you click on different types of categories such as Red and Gold, Every Little Thing, Best Buy Deals, etc. After you click on it, a bunch of items come up. The Best Buy deals items today are an LG TV on sales for $150 off, a phone for $50 off, some tax software that's on sales and a few other things. There's usually an envelope that says Tap for a Surprise. If you tap it, you'll get at least one Kick. You can get 100 of these per day the last time I checked. It's a bit time consuming, but if you're watching TV or waiting in line at the grocery store, you might as well do some clicking and earn some extra points. I don't do this very often though because I've got too much going on in life I always forget about this option. 

Invite Friends 

If your friends join ShopKick using your link, you earn 500 kicks. Your friend will also earn 500 Kicks. That changed at some point. When my first friend joined ShopKick off my link, I earned 50% of her kicks for the first 14 days. I earned enough to get a $5 Best Buy gift card. She really got into ShopKick. I totally got her hooked on all of these rewards programs. You can join ShopKick using my referral link and help me earn gift cards and you'll be 500 kicks closer to getting one as well. I'll be forever if your debt. 

Rewards

You can redeem rewards once you hit 75 Kicks. 

75 Kicks - You can get 1 point towards your AE Rewards for every 75 kicks. 

100 Kicks - For every 25 kicks donated, Shop Kick gives one meal to Feeding America. The Red Cross is also in the 100 Kicks section, but I'm not sure what they get when you donate your kicks. 

500 Kicks - Walmart, Target and American Eagle Gift cards start at 500 Kicks and you get $2.00. 

1250 Kicks - Starbucks, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Home Goods, JC Penny, Old Navy, GameStop, Best Buy, Macy's, Lowe's, Toys R Us, Nike, Barnes & Noble, The Cheesecake Factory, Papa Johns, Sports Authority, Foot Locker, Yankee Candle Company, Aerie, and Buca di Beppo all have gift cards that start at 1250. You get $5.00

2500 Kicks - Sephora, Restaurant.com and AMC have gift cards that start at 2500 kicks and you get $10.00. 

This could change at anytime though so check out the rewards listed in the app to decide what to strive for. I'm not responsible if you spend your time saving up for a certain card and it's not there when you go to redeem your prize.

So far, I've earned a total of 13,799 points. Most of that has probably been from Best Buy. I get all of my electronics there. 

My Overall Thoughts on the App

I think it's totally worth getting ShopKick. It's not going to make you rich, but you can earn up points all year long and make Christmas easier. The cool thing about ShopKick is that you can get your rewards immediately. Some of the other apps like mPoints make you wait a few days for your rewards. With ShopKick, I don't have to worry about planning. If I see a sale at Best Buy, I can walk into the store, decide I'm going to buy the item and then do a few clicks on my smartphone and magically I have a $5 or $10 gift card I can use right away. (No promises that it's instant for all stores or that it will remain instant in the future.) If you shop at Best Buy, Old Navy, Macy's, American Eagle or Carter's, it's silly not to join since you'll get points for doing something you would have done anyway.