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Cerado launches loyalty card organization app

Ever wished for a slimmer wallet without losing a handful of loyalty and membership cards? There's an app for that.

Cerado, a mobile software and services provider, launched Scanaroo for that very purpose. The Scanaroo application lets users store all of their loyalty card information into the app, eliminating the need to carry plastic all the time, everywhere.

"It is our belief that mobile will have a transformational effect on retail in the next decade," said Christopher Carfi, CEO at Cerado, Half Moon Bay, CA. "We also believe that the right point of integration for customer information in the hands of the customer, not in various vendor silos.

"As such, Scanaroo was designed to enable customers to begin that first step of simplifying their interactions with retailers and other vendors by enabling loyalty and other cards to be carried around as simply as we carry music around today," he said. "It's sort of like an iPod for loyalty cards."

The application is meant to get rid of the clutter in an overstuffed wallet by translating the information from the card into a user's mobile phone.

The Scanaroo app is available for download in the Apple App Store for $0.99.

The application works by taking a picture of a membership or loyalty card with the mobile phone's camera and converting the card into digital form.

Part of the value exchange of this application is the organizational factor it brings to the lives of its users.

"Our key demographic is anyone who carries more than three cards, or has ever arrived at the register to realize that the loyalty card for that retailer had been left at home on the dresser, after being taken out of a bag or wallet in order to make room for other things," Mr. Carfi said.

"Similarly, it helps retailers by enabling their cards to always be right there, and not be the ones that are left at home," he said.

Often times, loyalty cards, gift cards and membership cards are not used on a daily basis and get mixed up with important documentation like driver's licenses and insurance information.

Scanaroo provides an organized platform on which to store membership and loyalty cards without fumbling around in the front of a line.

The application from Cerado comes with many features such as the ability to add a new card by taking a photo and create a personalized icon for each card with those photos.

The Scanaroo application also supports both bar-coded and non-bar-coded cards.

As security is imperative to an application that stores personal information, Scanaroo allows users to create a unique four-digit passcode that can be turned on or off.

Cerado claims that Scanaroo is not ad-supported in the best interest of the consumer.

"We believe that over the next decade, mobile will be the transformational technology that fundamentally alters the customer/vendor relationship, which is currently predominantly one-sided on the side of the vendor," Mr. Carfi said.

"Mobile is going to be the catalyst that moves retail into the network age," he said.