Retailers including Gap, Sephora and H&M are using the Wrapp mobile application to let shoppers buy and send digital gift cards.

Wrapp combines SMS, email, social media and apps to drive consumers to brick-and-mortar and Web retail locations. The Wrapp app is available for iPhone and Android devices.

?Mobile devices are where people are interacting with friends, accessing the Internet, and making buying decisions,? said Hjalmar Winbladh, CEO/cofounder of Wrapp, New York.

?Forward-thinking brands have known for some time that using social media and mobile phones for marketing is the right thing to do, but it has been expensive and a challenge to figure out and measure whether it works,? he said.

Social giving
Consumers who download the Wrapp app need to sync their Facebook account in order to use it.

Users can then scroll through a list of their Facebook friends or view upcoming birthdays to send gifts to.

Consumers can then pick from a list of participating retailers to send a digital gift card to.

Depending on the retailer, the amount of the digital gift card can differ but are generally around $5. Digital gift cards can then be sent via email, SMS or by being published on a Facebook timeline.

To redeem the offer, users must download the Wrapp app. The offer is then kept inside the app until a consumer visits a store, where a store employee scans a bar code that users unlock when they want to use the offer.

The offers also apply for retailer?s Web and mobile commerce.

Mobile merchants
In addition to Gap and Sephora, other retailers using the app to drive Web and in-store traffic include Wayfair, Brooklyn Industries and Threadless.

Retailers have grappled with finding ways to monetize their social media efforts and by combining it with an offer that is only redeemable via the app, it gives companies an idea of how responsive users are to digital offers.

Similar to all app-based marketing, getting users to find, download and use the app is a challenge. However, by bringing on board retailers, Wrapp hopes to become a one-spot place for users to find and send digital gift cards to their friends and family.

According to recent research from BrandSpark International, 54 percent of consumers are interested in using mobile coupons (see story).

The study points to how both retailers and mobile companies are itching to find ways to target mobile shoppers with coupons, which can ultimately lead to bigger shopping carts. Users who are enticed with a mobile coupon or offer will be more willing to shop.

?By combining their social and mobile efforts ? at least with Wrapp ? retailers can target who they want to market to by gender, age and location, get the benefit of brand-building through friend-to-friend marketing on Facebook, and only pay for all of that marketing when an actual sale is made in their store,? Mr. Winbladh said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is editorial assitant on Mobile Marketer, New York