99 Ranch Market is offering prizes at the point of sale to customers at its stores in Washington who use a beacon-compatible app called WeChat.​ WeChat is a Chinese social app with a reported 600 million users in China.
99 Ranch is a Buena Park, Calif.-based chain aimed at Asian Americans, with 35 stores in California, Nevada, Texas and Washington.
The promotion tied to the WeChat app, called “Shake Shake Game,” will run through Aug. 27. The company is offering it as part of its celebration of the Chinese Mooncake Festival. The number of participants reached more than 1,700 on the first day of the promotion.
Once the app is installed in a smartphone, customers moving around a store will be alerted by an audio message when they are near specific items; shaking the phone enables them to win prizes, including $100 worth of 99 Ranch coupons.
Unlike a raffle, there is no limitation to qualifying — the more they shake the phone, the more opportunity they have to win, according to iBeacon service provider Sensoro.

“WeChat's ‘shake’ feature has been widely used in China which means beacon notifications are not ‘pushed’ to a user's smartphone,” according to Sensoro. “When WeChat is launched and a customer is within range of a beacon, a proximity icon will appear on his or her screen. If the user then shakes the smartphone, the coupon will be delivered, eliminating the potential negative experience of having beacon notifications automatically sent to the customer's smartphone.”