Dive Brief:

• Target is testing an extension of its popular Cartwheel app that would allow users to redeem third-party coupons, the company announced Monday.

• Users can now use their open Cartwheel app to scan an item barcode to see if there’s either a Target deal or coupon that lowers the price. Store maps show users where discounted items are, and push notifications tell users what a week’s new deals are going to be.

• The access to third-party coupons is made possible through a partnership with digital coupon company Quotient (formerly Coupons.com), rather than with manufacturers and vendors themselves, according to reporting by TechCrunch.

Dive Insight:

Target unveiled Cartwheel in 2013, and it’s been a hit with many customers from the start. It’s also been a boon to the retailer: In its first year, the app led people to visit Target more often and spend more on each visit, according to executives.

“It gives Target a much larger and more frequent mobile application user base than almost any other retailer,” Erich Joachimsthaler, founder and CEO of Vivaldi Partners Group, told Digiday in January. 

With a place on the limited real estate that is shoppers' phones, Cartwheel takes the place of that key pre-purchase shopping journal that is becoming a hallmark of today’s shopper. It can be synced with an iPhone user’s shopping lists on the iOS notes app. And Target is said to be working on a wallet.

And that could make Cartwheel even more powerful, and Target’s customers that much more sticky.

“It's the 'Cozstanza wallet' effect,’” Mark Tack, VP of marketing at mobile marketing firm Vibes, told Retail Dive last year. “The overflowing wallet. It’s insanity, especially, to try to shop our paper coupons. So to organize and mobilize all that content, there’s benefit, first just from a convenience standpoint. But the second big benefit is that these wallets are location aware, so you can get a reminder from a store that you have a coupon or a sale when you’re nearby.”