CommBank Offers Is A Mobile App That Sends You Retail Deals While You’re Shopping

The Commonwealth Bank is piloting a targeted offers program where customers can receive deals directly onto their mobile devices when they’re physically in shopping centres. The bank doesn’t want to bug people with deals they don’t like so it has opted for a Tinder-like system to gauge customer preferences.

The pilot is slated for August and will first be tested in a Westfield Shopping Centre (location yet to be confirmed). Only selected Commonwealth Bank customers will be invited to join the pilot program.

So how does it work? Retailers within the Westfield shopping centre can send out deals through beacons located around the shopping centre and an alert will be pushed through the Offers app on a user’s mobile. Unlike similar daily deal applications, it won’t just be a message blasted to all users in the shopping centre.

According to Commonwealth Bank, the app gauges your preferences by allowing you to swipe left or right to show whether you’re interested in certain deals. It then learns to tailor offers that shows up for different users.

The app doesn’t handle payments directly. For example, if you want to redeem a discount coffee deal at a café, you will need to pay on the spot with cash or card.

The Commonwealth Bank hasn’t released any more details on the Offers pilot program but considering it has partnered with SCentre Group (the guys that own all the Westfield Shopping Centres in Australia) expect to see a wider rollout across the country later down the track.

What do you guys think about this kind of technology? While I like the idea of curated deals following me around a shopping centre it also has the potential to become annoying. Plus, there’s the question of how accurate the tailored service will be — automated customer recommendations tended to be very hit-and-miss in the past. Let us know what you think in the comments.


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