Shopkick, one of the largest location-based shopping apps that rewards shoppers for merely walking into stores, has made it through its first year unscathed. In just a year, shopkick has a reported 2.2 million users, and some 2,500 retail and mall locations that make up shopkick’s Retail Partner Network.  The app has been used to scan more than 7 million products, allowing users to browse more than 350 million items in the app.

Given the competitive nature of mobile retail apps that operate on the local scale, shopkick’s thrown out some impressive stats for its year-one milestone.

“When we launched, we made two promises.  The first to the retailers and brands: that we could help drive more sales without heavy discounts like the daily deal sites.  The second was to shoppers: that we could make their shopping experience more personal, rewarding and fun,” said Cyriac Roeding, the co-founder of shopkick.

“And in 12 short months, we’ve gone farther with the app than we’d ever imagined – delivering more rewards to more people from more partners in more locations.”

With last week’s 12 additional partner alliance with brands like CoverGirl and Disney, it’s only fitting that shopkick’s birthday celebration include more brand partners, including InStyle and Toys’R’Us.  InStyle will have a virtual Pop-Up Store on shopkick called Shop By Color, which will offer product recommendations and styling tips to shopkick users. Toys“R”Us will launch a pilot program to bring shopkick’s walk-in rewards and special deals to 100 select Toys“R”Us and Babies“R”Us stores in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco this fall.

So, what makes shopkick better than those daily deals sites?  Well, for one, you get rewarded with ‘kicks’, shopkick denomination that you can redeem for iTunes gift cards, Facebook Credits, charitable donations, gift cards for partner stores and more, just by walking in partner stores.  There’s no purchases required, and this system operates around the use of their patent-pending shopkick Signal device that communicates with your device through inaudible sound waves, which alerts your mobile app of your actual presence in the store.  It’s a fluid way to “check in” without requiring additional work from end users, increasing the opportunities for shopkick to gather valuable consumer data around retail activities.

Combined with the other features and brand-driven promos in shopkick’s app, clients are able to gain a rather detailed view of individual customer activity, as well as large-scale demographic data that can be used for hyperlocal marketing.  The space continues to get more competitive as more apps drive localized consumer behavior into mobile devices, capturing it at every opportunity.  Advertising is the biggest winner here, as this industry information is being leveraged for real-time recommendations and delivery.