Canadian Tire rolls out mPay & Play
New mobile app allows members to pay, redeem points, unlock ‘ badges’
Canadian Tire Corp. Ltd. has worked hard to become a more technology- focused retailer in recent years and is now aiming to spark loyalty- fatigued consumers’ creative interest with a new app that serves as a mobile credit card, a loyalty card and a hockey game, all in one.
The new mPay & Play mobile app is available to all holders of the retailer’s Canadian Tire Options MasterCard and allows users to pay for all of their Canadian Tire store purchases, redeem loyalty points, and unlock “badges” to collect bonus digital Canadian Tire money.
Then there is the app’s hockey game, which has no loyalty benefit but could eat up untold hours of time among any gaming- obsessed customers who get stuck on trying to put 10 Canadian Tire- branded pucks in a row inside a virtual net.
“We, as a company that was founded in 1922 are, working very hard to be more nimble and responsive,” Eugene Roman, the retailer’s chief technology officer, said at a Wednesday event to showcase the app. It’s aimed at better connecting with “always on” customers who use their phones for real- time mobile research and price comparisons during shopping trips. “We believe that ‘ shoppertainment’ — entertaining our customers while they shop — is a useful thing,” he added.
It’s the latest in a series of technology plays from the Toronto- based retailer, which finally launched a widely anticipated digital app and wallet card last October to tie Canadian Tire Money, Canada’s oldest loyalty program, with customers’ purchase information in a way that the classic paper coupons could not. The digital loyalty program now has seven million users.
Canadian Tire infamously killed its retail website in 2009 due to poor sales, but has taken multiple steps to remedy its once- stodgy reputation. Two years ago, the retailer set up a digital outpost inside Waterloo, Ont.- based startup incubator Communitech and sent out 5,000 tablet devices to its 490 stores so customers can to look up products and information on site. The retailer debuted a completely new shopping website in late 2013 that allows customers to pick up purchases at the store closest to them.
“They are building a ( digital) platform and I applaud their efforts to evolve and explore and find out what will appeal to consumers and what won’t,” said Doug Stephens, founder of Toronto- based advisory firm Retail Prophet. Gamification “makes it fun,” he added, and could help draw customers to the app.
But Stephens also said the company has yet to become truly omnichannel because it only offers instore pickup for online shopping. And it might not be particularly useful as a credit card, unless there is some added functionality like estimating for a budget project, he said, particularly because the mobile payment function of the app can only be used at Canadian Tire stores, while the plastic Options MasterCard it emulates allows cardholders to shop anywhere.
Cam Thomson, digital marketing manager at Canadian Tire Financial Services, said the app’s gaming element could evolve to allow users to earn badges for playing the game. “We definitely have strategic thoughts about how we could take that game and make it about more than just killing time,” he said.
Loblaw’s PC Plus loyalty app will move to reward customers for healthy eating behaviour, executive chairman Galen Weston said in May, though he did not reveal when or how that will happen.