Pinkberry recently updated its iOS mobile application with new features such as mobile payments and Passbook integration, allowing for a quicker way to pay for frozen yogurt in-store.

The Pinkberry pinkcard app is available for free in Apple’s App Store and Google Play, but the newest version with payment capabilities has only rolled out on iOS as of now. In addition to offering mobile payments, the pinkcard app lets consumers combine accounts and earn rewards as well as easily send egift cards to friends.

“The focus of the updated app was to continue to add value to our customers’ experience,” said Laura Jakobsen, senior vice president of marketing and design at Pinkberry, Santa Monica, CA.

“Since the app is the center of our pinkcard loyalty program we made it easier to track and redeem rewards and manage your card,” she said. “Secondly, based on customer feedback we added convenient payment methods with scan to pay technology.

“As a result, the average transaction is timed at seven seconds using the app scan feature and 27 when processing a cash transaction.”

Pinkcard
The updated pinkcard app lets consumers scan to pay for frozen yogurt and earn rewards. The new app as an improved design as well as product highlights.

Once a consumer downloads the pinkcard app, he or she can load money onto a card. Consumers can also choose to have the app auto-reload money onto the card.

Consumers can also combine accounts from different gift cards and egift cards. They can add the card to Passbook, too.

Once there is money on the card, consumers can pay in-store by swiping the app to reveal a bar code that the cashier will scan.

Since releasing the app in October, Pinkberry has been ramping up its mobile loyalty program for a while. It recently drove app downloads via email blasts (see story).

Mobile payments
As the mobile payment space continues to grow, consumers have more easily adopted incremental, repetitive payments such as coffee. Consumers are more likely to pay via their phones when it is a quick and small transaction.

Starbucks has been one of the clear leaders in mobile payments with its offering. In the third-quarter of 2013, 10 percent of Starbucks in-store United States sales stemmed from mobile payments (see story).

Like Starbucks, Pinkberry sells low-ticket items that consumers buy fairly frequently. Repeat frozen yogurt customers may be more likely to use mobile payments for the same reason that consumers have flocked to Starbucks’s offering.

Pinkberry has also used a similar format to Starbucks for its mobile commerce with a swipe-to-scan design and Passbook integration.

“We are constantly seeking to raise the bar throughout our experience,” Ms. Jakobsen said. “Adding payments makes it easier and faster for our consumers by placing everything they need to pay and earn rewards with Pinkberry in the palm of their hand.

“Based on our customer research, our customers of which 80 percent of them are on a iPhone asked for this feature. With our commitment to constantly innovate on behalf of our consumers we added [Passbook].”

Final Take
Rebecca Borison is editorial assistant on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York