I’m a savvy shopper, but collecting coupons and hunting for the best deals can be real a drag. I gather so many coupons on my phone that I sometimes completely forget about their existence when I’m out shopping.
Thankfully, a new Scottsdale-based startup BeaconStream, might just be the cure to my shopping woes. Their app leverages Apple’s location awareness iBeacon technology and as a customer approaches a business, or browsing inside the store, the user will receive push notifications filled with deals sent straight to a participating users’ phone.
[youtube width=”560″ height=”315″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0Y918CydR0[/youtube]
While this location-based technology was only introduced September 2013 with iOS7, it’s gaining heavy interest across industries and app developers.
“Beacon technology is a hot topic these days. Everywhere we seem to go no matter what channel or the vertical you look at, everybody is interested in the technology in some form or another,” said BeaconStream’s Chief Innovation Officer Chris Damron.
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ight now, Apple is building on this technology by finding ways to apply it to our homes. Damron gives examples of the thermostat changing when you walk into your house, or the coffee pot starting when you enter your kitchen.
There are a growing number of applications to this technology, and BeaconStream jumped on the opportunity to fully integrate marketing capabilities, allowing businesses big or small to send iOS and Android customers “notifications, data, coupons, promotions and videos” up to 100 feet away, according to their website.
It’s cheap to implement, easy to set up, and no privacy lines are crossed by collecting personal data.
“We’re not capturing that information,” said Damron. “It’s just capturing a device, not really any information about the user or the person who has the phone.”
The startup launched May 1 of this year, but BeaconStream developers had already been interested in iBeacon technology through its parent company, AdeptPros, a Scottsdale mobile developer.
AdeptPros provided BeaconStream with $500,000 in funding to get up and running.
Damron shared that BeaconStream has been in heavy talks with companies of all sizes to adopt their app. Businesses can even integrate BeaconStream into their existing applications such as with the Phoenix Coyotes, who they are currently speaking with.
The team’s goal is to have 10,000 businesses use BeaconStream in the next 12 months, so they will be going through a heavy growth period, creating lots of new jobs to make that happen.
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Graphics provided by BeaconStream
