Traditional "brick and mortar" storefronts are facing a difficult competitor these days; the consumer armed with a smartphone or tablet who buys products online rather than making the difficult trek from couch to physical store. AllThingsD blogger Lauren Goode wrote today about a way that store owners are fighting back using apps that offer "rewards, coupons and other incentives that can only be earned when you're physically in a store."
Goode talks about this new trend to reward shoppers for coming into stores by describing two apps. First, there's Shopkick (free), which provides points (called "kicks") towards store
