American Express Co. is making its presence known to online shoppers well before the checkout page.
The New York payments network has rolled out an e-commerce tool that flags promotions available to its cardholders in search engine results and on individual retailer websites. The inSite service displays an icon next to items in search results indicating when bonus rewards points, free shipping or another promotion is available for purchases at that merchant.
The service, provided through a web browser plug-in that users download for free, also displays such messages when browsing retailers' websites. The advantage of this system is it keeps Amex prominent throughout the shopping experience, Amex says.
"Instead of pulling you out of your shopping … online, asking you to come to American Express to get that offer, we're actually allowing you to continue shopping as you normally would," Elizabeth Skinner, a vice president of marketing for American Express, said in an interview.
"We are really just letting customers know there are certain benefits that they already have on their card and making sure while you are shopping you are aware of those benefits," Skinner said.
Amex developed inSite with the bill-payment technology company Billeo Inc. Consumers redeem rewards by making purchases at the merchant websites in which the rewards appear.
The inSite tool, announced Thursday, could gain favor among Amex cardholders because it eliminates some of the steps often needed to take advantage of special offers, including requiring a cardholder to visit a specific card issuer's site to redeem, said Nicole Sturgill, the research director for delivery channels at TowerGroup in Needham, Mass.
"The hardest part about rewards is knowing when you get a reward if you're shopping for something and you have to go to the rewards site," she said.
From a delivery standpoint the inSite service "makes a lot of sense" because "you're not having to go to multiple sites to see if you could get a deal somewhere else," Sturgill added. "If it actually pushes that information out to you instead of you having to go get it, I think that's the critical piece."
Many of the offers in inSite are similar to those that an Amex cardholder would see on the company's Membership Rewards and Bonus Points Mall sites.
The company plans to increase the number and type of offers over time, Skinner said.
"We're leveraging our strong relationship across our merchant network to ensure we've got offers … that are over and above those that you would see" in the existing rewards program, she said.
The service currently presents offers from more than 250 merchants, including Barnes & Noble Inc. and Crate & Barrel.
The inSite service is the latest example of a payments network rolling out a shopping technology aimed at increasing card spending at their merchant partners.
MasterCard Inc. in April launched MarketPlace, a website that contains discounts and bonus rewards offers on products. Visa Inc. has been promoting Rightcliq, a tool connected to a user's Web browser that aggregates product listings and automatically fills in payment card information, including for non-Visa cards, at merchant sites.
"They're each targeted in different ways and will probably have users that will prefer one environment versus another," said Beth Robertson, the director of payments research at Javelin Strategy and Research in Pleasanton, Calif.
The e-commerce market has been the fastest-growing segment of retail in recent years and continued growing even during the last economic downturn, Robertson said.
"It's not only growing domestically, it's growing in other countries as well," Robertson said. "So there's also the opportunity to ultimately take applications like these to more of a global consumer and merchant base."
Billeo, of Santa Clara, Calif., developed the browser application that underlies the service. A Billeo executive could not be reached for comment before deadline.
Billeo also offers browser toolbar applications that store consumers' billing information and auto-fills in address information.
The company brings its "strength in multisite search and aggregation" to the table, Robertson said. "It's an interesting adaptation of their capabilities."
Sturgill said Billeo knows what resonates with consumers in an online environment. The fact that inSite must be downloaded could deter some Amex cardholders from using the service, she cautioned.
"It's an extra step," Sturgill said. Cardholders "have to understand what's in it for them … to make them go get it."
