Location Based Gifts

Giftrocket is a location based gifting service that uses your phones GPS and the PayPal service to redeem rewards for a specific location. Here's how it works via mashable:

"...the giver picks a place in a specific region, as sourced from Yelp’s business listings, via the GiftRocket website. Let’s use Peet’s Coffee in Marina Del Rey as an example. The gift giver then builds the GiftRocket by filling out a few key details like amount ($20), recipient name (Scott) and email, and a personal message. Finally, the buyer pays for the gift with his credit card.

Our lucky recipient, Scott, is notified via email of his new gift. The next time he visits Peet’s, he can press “redeem” on his smartphone (no app required) to cash in his gift card. After verifying Scott’s exact whereabouts, GiftRocket will approve the request and automatically deposit $20 in Scott’s PayPal account. Scott’s next lattes are on the house, theoretically."

On a similar vein gifting giant Groupon have just announced Groupon Now a location and time based version of their coupon system. How it works:

"It's only 11 a.m. Mason clicks the "hungry" button, and his phone transmits its location to Groupon's servers and then displays a list of deals from nearby restaurants. Across a bridge spanning the Chicago River, the Asian fusion restaurant Thalia Spice is testing Groupon Now by offering $20 worth of food for $12. A block to the north, an eatery named @ Spot Café is dangling a $10 coupon for $6. Each restaurant has specified that its discount is good only during select hours on that particular day, when a few of their tables would otherwise be empty."

Both projects indicate that location based services that offer real world rewards, not virtual ones (see last weeks post on the future of Foursquare) will become the direction the technology moves in. For brands, the idea that customers will generate their own gift card for a brand (Giftrocket) or that they can instantly generate one for their own (Groupon now) is a very exciting development.

Retail stores could offer time based discounts creating a sense of urgency and introducing an element of gaming to the shopping experience.


A location based "treasure hunt" that has time built in: each "clue" has to be solved and found within a certain time.


Or simply making sure that when a user is "hungry" or "bored" that their brand is present.