Most people are already very familiar with earning extra cashback by shopping online through cashback portals. In fact, you can also earn some extra rewards when shopping in physical stores. Sometimes, you can even make money without buying anything at all—just by walking into a store and scanning items. If you can earn rewards from “scanning” and “checking in,” why not take advantage of such easy free money? Today, we’ll share a money-making APP for in-store shopping—Shopkick.
【12/12 Update】 12/16-12/18 holiday promotion: walk-in rewards increase to 150 kicks, plus a 2x bonus event. Don’t miss it if you’re nearby! See the image below for details:
【12/8 Update】Right now, if you scan Shopkick at checkout in a Best Buy store, you can earn 4 kick/$ (equivalent to 1.6% back). In addition, if you spend $350 or more, you can receive an extra 1000-point bonus, worth roughly another 1%. This is a great fit for buying Visa gift cards together with an AMEX Offer.
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What Is Shopkick?
Shopkick is a mobile APP designed for in-store shopping. When you enter a store, the app automatically detects your location and gives you some Kicks as a walk-in reward. You can also use the APP to scan certain eligible products to earn Kicks, earn kick by making purchases at participating merchants, and earn kick by uploading receipts. Kicks can be redeemed for gift cards from many stores such as Walmart and Best Buy.
It’s pretty nice to earn free gift cards while shopping just by checking in, scanning, and uploading. And if you use it well, you can also stack it with various credit card rewards to generate some extra cashback.
Sign-Up and Sign-Up Bonus
Register for Shopkick now and use promo code: walk250. If you complete a walk-in or scan an eligible item within 7 days, you can get an extra 250 kick.
- Shopkick sign-up link (On a phone, it will automatically open the download link. On a computer, it will ask you to enter your phone number to receive the download link by text. You must use code: walk250.)
【Limited-time bonus】After signing up, link a Visa or Mastercard and you can earn an additional 500 kick.
Refresh after linking it and you should see the extra 500 kick added.
Ways to Earn Kicks
There are four main ways to earn kick:
Automatic walk-in rewards
This is the simplest and most straightforward method. Just bring your phone into one of the listed merchants, and make sure Bluetooth is turned on when you enter the store. Then you can automatically earn kick.
In the nearby merchants list, if you see a little person icon plus a number next to a store, that means the store offers a walk-in reward. It’s very easy to identify. Macy's offers as much as 150 kick, Best Buy has 35, and Walmart and Target have 25.
If you happen to visit a shopping mall with several stores offering walk-in rewards, you can easily rack up a few hundred kicks just by wandering around for a few minutes.
Of course, walk-in rewards do have limits, so you can’t keep farming them infinitely in a short period of time. Just check whether there’s a person icon + number before entering the store.
Scan products and upload receipts
You can also earn kick by scanning eligible products at participating stores. Take CVS as an example: open CVS in Shopkick, then tap Scan, and you’ll see all of the products that can earn kick through scanning.
Find the matching product on the shelf, then tap that product image in Shopkick, choose scan, and scan the barcode. The kick will be credited right away.
Likewise, if you buy the product, you can upload your receipt to earn even more kick.
Earn kick from purchases
Some merchants also offer kick based on a percentage of your spending. The usual rate is around 2-5 kick/$1, which works out to roughly 0.8%-2% back. If it’s for something you were going to buy anyway, it’s a nice extra return. For example:
- Best Buy: 2 kick/$1
- Macy's: 5 kick/$1
Some merchants also offer extra bonus Kicks, which can be quite good when available. For example, spend $100 at american eagle and you can get 2000 kick, which is worth $8, or 8% back.
To earn kick from purchases, you need to link a Visa or Mastercard and then use that linked card to shop, and the kick will post automatically. Best Buy is an exception: Shopkick provides a QR code, and when you check out at Best Buy, the cashier scans it. Your information is then recorded, and your Shopkick member code will also appear on the receipt.
Refer friends
You can also earn rewards by inviting friends to join Shopkick. I’ve seen two versions:
- After the referred person completes a walk-in or scan task, both people receive 250 kick
- The referrer can earn 20% of the kick the referred person earns within the first two weeks
Redeeming Kicks
I looked through the full gift card redemption list and found that Kicks are worth 0.4c/kick. In other words, 500 kick can be redeemed for a $2 gift card, and 2500 kick can be redeemed for $10.
Each merchant has its own minimum redemption threshold. Some start at $2, while others start at $5. However, the redemption value is consistently fixed at 0.4c.
Of course, if you’re interested, you can also redeem for physical products. iPad, TVs, even electric scooters... though you’d probably need to keep doing store runs for decades.
Examples of Real-World Use
Make money scanning while profiting on CVS deals
If you follow this site’s CVS Deal posts and go roll ECB every week to pick up free items, you can also download this APP and scan products in the store to earn quite a bit on each trip. And if something you buy happens to appear in the Shopkick list, you can upload the receipt while rolling free ECB deals and come out ahead overall.
Earn even more at Best Buy by stacking with AMEX Offer
If you follow this site’s AMEX Offer posts, you’ll notice that combining a Best Buy AMEX Offer with Shopkick can add another layer of profit. Right now, the Best Buy AMEX Offer is spend $250 and get $25 back, while Shopkick offers 2 kick/$. So you could buy five $200 Visa gift cards, pay using four AMEX cards, and also scan with Shopkick. That would look like this:
- Cost: ($200+$6) *5-$25*4 (AMEX OFFER) =$930
- Return: $1,000 (Visa gift cards) +$10 (credit card cashback) +$20 (Best Buy Rewards) +2000 kick (worth $8) =$1,038
- Profit: $108
Sometimes Best Buy also offers 4 kick/$ (such as during Black Friday), so you could earn $16 worth of kick on one transaction. Not bad at all. I recently did this a few times myself and earned a pile of kick.
