Target shoppers looking to pay for their purchases with a Target gift card now have another option besides whipping out the plastic at the checkout. The big-box value retailer is letting its gift card holders save their cards to an account on Target’s mobile site and simply present their web-enabled mobile phones to the cashier.
Shopers are now able to save the account numbers for their Target GiftCards to a PIN-protected area at either online or at the retailer’s mobile-optimized site. To use the card for an in-store purchase, customers need only to go to the mobile site on their phones and enter the login and PIN for that card. A unique 2D
barcode appears on the phone display screen, the cashier scans that code into Target’s P-O-S system, and the amount of the purchase is automatically deducted from the gift card.
Target holders will also be able to add value to their gift cards while at the register. The new system will permit them to register and name more than one gift card account for mobile access.
“The addition of mobile gift cards to our suite of mobile shopping solutions further simplifies the Target experience for our guests,” Target.com president Steve Eastman said in a release.
Besides using their Web-enabled phones to access their gift cards, shoppers can view online merchandise at the Target mobile site, check product availability, locate brick and mortar stores, manage a Target gift registry or wish list, browse weekly ads and opt in for text-message offers.
POS scanning systems have been outfitted to accommodate mobile-screen scanning at all 1740 U.S. Target stores, making it the first national chain to incorporate mobile barcode scans into its system-wide payment process.
If successful, the mobile rollout could have an impact beyond Target’s retail gift card business and could eventually encompass a national in-store mobile payment solution, something not yet seen in the U.S.
Other U.S. retail chains are running regional or small-market tests of mobile 2D barcode scanning as a payment option. Starbucks, which lets users of its iPhone app register their prepaid cards and reload their value via mobile phone, has been testing an iPhone barcode payment system in some of its Seattle and Silicon Valley stores since last September.
And in December, convenience chain 7-Eleven ran a San Diego-based test using 2d barcodes. In that test, mobile short codes in offline ads allowed users to receive a bar-coded free drink offer to their phones. Those codes were then scanned at one of the more than 200 outlets participating in the local test for offer redemption.
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