When IKEA Seattle launched a mobile loyalty program in June to build a database of people interested in receiving discounts, the home furnishing retailer never even imagined that 23,000 consumers would sign-up.

The text-to-enter loyalty program is a means for IKEA to start a dialogue with interested consumers. BCode is powering the texted discounts and has found that there have been more than 15,000 offer redemptions to date.

"The greatest thing about mobile and retail is the fact that consumers cannot bring their PCs with them everywhere, but they do bring their mobile phones everywhere," said Michael Mak, CEO/founder of BCode, San Francisco.

IKEA is one of the largest home furnishings retailers worldwide, with more than 275 stores in 36 countries, including 35 in the United States.

The key demographic of users is female ages 18-49, with a secondary demographic of families.

Consumers love the BCode "iPhone-like" user experience and BCode claims that usability and user experience is key to consumer adoption and response rates.

Mr. Mak claims that IKEA campaigns average 5-10 percent response rates.

Specifically, the campaigns are sent out at times where the recipients are not in the store. This percentage shows the percentage of consumers that have been driven to visit the store as a result of the attractive mobile coupon offers.

The calls to action for the mobile loyalty program are posted online and promoted via email campaigns.
In-store signage asks consumers to text IKEA1 to short code 30364.

Texters get a message back letting them know that they will be receiving at least one IKEA message per week with deals, games and alerts.

Examples include 20 percent off special products, or class of products, restaurant food offers or dollars off certain purchase size.

During Q4 2008, the BCode mobile coupon platform generated six figures in sales that were directly tied to IKEA Mobile member shopping in the Seattle store.

This figure is growing on an average of 10 percent every month. The "Closed-Loop" nature of BCode's scanning service allows this type of sales statistics to be tracked down to per-customer and per-offer level.

IKEA traditionally sends out catalogs with special promotions and discounts.

The Swedish-owned company first began using mobile eight months ago, asking consumers to text-to-play on IKEA trivia. All the answers could be found in the catalog.

Valassis aided in the development of the text-to-play. This was a push for the IKEA catalog, with players having to look though, interact with and involve themselves with the catalog.

Sending potential customers coupons via their mobile phone as opposed to printed coupons is eco-friendly because the consumer only prints the coupon if he or she is interested in the offer.

"BCode can track offers down to the actual transaction," Mr. Mak said. "Consumers really love it as the results show. We have aided IKEA in increasing its revenue and have been helping drive people in-store."