• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, March 4, 2015

More ads or deals are coming to mobile mall shoppers, courtesy of the mall’s WiFi.

Following an introduction in a shopping center chain last year, another mall developer is launching a WiFi marketing system in 10 of its malls.

When shoppers tap into the mall’s WiFi signal, they’re redirected to a default page containing promotions or ads from retailers inside the mall.

The messaging platform in the malls is from California startup StepsAway and it allows retailers to essentially become content publishers, offering targeted messages in hopes of luring shoppers to their store.

The consumer in the mall sees all the offers from participating retailers and makes a selection (or not).

Starwood Retail Partners malls located in California, North Carolina, Texas, Florida, Nebraska, Ohio and Virginia just launched the system, StepsAway CEO Allan Haims told me yesterday.

This is the second multi-store mall deployment, following the introduction in six Taubman shopping centers last year, as I wrote about here at the time (New Ways to Target Mobile Mall Shoppers).

The earlier program has seen a 30% increase in the number of offers viewed compared to last year, according to StepsAway. As a side note, 60% of the consumers using it are tapping in from Apple devices.

Retailers using the mall messaging platform include Sephora, Express, GNC, Things Remembered and Art of Shaving, Haims said.

From the consumer’s viewpoint, there is no app to download since the offers and promotions from retailers ride along the mall WiFi onto shoppers’ smartphones.

Sign-in to the WiFi network is not required, according to Haims. “Shoppers don’t necessarily want to use a specific app,” he said.

Some of the deals at certain retailers may be the same as without the system, but the mobile shopper now can check which ones they want to check out as soon as they check in at the mall.