Visa Inc. is working with clothing retailer Gap Inc. to deliver discounts to cardholders via mobile phone SMS text messages.
The card company launched a pilot in November with Gap to give customers from the retailer’s e-mail database the chance to opt in to the service with their Visa cards.
Visa is using its VisaNet processing connectivity and transaction information to deliver immediate discounts to participating cardholders, Leigh Amaro, Visa senior business leader for global information products, tells Payments Source. Visa will provide Gap information on cardholders’ shopping habits so it may provide them discounts while they shop, she says.
“We can see by cardholders’ transactions when and where and at what time they are shopping, so we can use the mobile phone to buzz them with a text message that says to ‘come to the Gap in the next four hours and get 50% off regularly priced items,’ for example,” says Amaro.
Visa is opening the service to others, though she could not say when more merchants might begin using the service. Retailers may use the mobile-texting program to drive traffic and sales, especially during normally slow periods, Visa says.
Visa and Gap declined to provide details regarding the pilot or how they will market the program to Gap customers going forward.
More and more payments companies are providing immediate discounts through mobile phones to boost sales and build loyalty (
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