Starbucks Expands Mobile Payment Test to Target Stores
Caffeinated colossus Starbucks is expanding an earlier in-store test of an iPhone payment system to more than 1,000 outlets. Since last year, the system has been testing in 16 outlets around Silicon Valley and the Northwest, including Starbucks’ Seattle home base.
The new platform is being rolled out primarily to Starbucks stores operating in the Target retail chain. Target has been a Starbucks licensee for the last decade.
The mobile solution adds point-of-sale code scanning to the Starbucks Card Mobile pp the company launched last fall. Customers who used that password-protected app on their iPhones or iPod Touch devices could register their in-store cards, look up their current balances and refill them using a credit card.
Now they will also be able to call up their card number, verify their details, and send them off to Starbucks. If the card contains sufficient funds, they’ll receive back a QR code that the cashier can scan in to deduct the purchase amount—no wallet required.
The iPhone app also includes a store locator feature specifically built to identify Starbucks outlets in the user’s vicinity that are now accepting mobile payments. Previous versions of the store locator already identify Starbucks stores that are open at the moment the app is being used and those with drive-thru capability.
“Now that customers can use the Starbucks Card Mobile app at locations within Target stores nationwide, they will have more opportunities to experience the ease and convenience of paying for their favorite Starbucks beverages with a flash of their iPhone or iPod Touch devices,” said Brady Brewer, vice president of Starbucks card and store segmentation in a release.
Target recently made mobile news of its own with the first large-scale nationwide rollout of mobile couponing. Users of all model phones can sign up at http://sites.target.com/site/en/spot/mobile.jsp?title=coupon_signup to receive barcode-enabled coupons that can then be scanned in at registers throughout Target’s 1,740-store U.S. chain.
As in the early Seattle-Silicon pilot, the mobile payment solution used in the current Starbucks test is provided by mFoundry.
Mobile payments are still relatively uncommon in the U.S. but have already gone mainstream in the advanced mobile markets of Asia, Europe and South America. A study just released by Research and Markets found that mobile payment users worldwide are projected to increase from 81.3 million in 2009 to nearly 490 million by the end of 2014. In that time, the study forecasts, the value of global transactions completed through mobile payments will grow from last year’s $68.7 billion to $633.4 billion four years from now.
