Stacy Branham, a Virginia Tech graduate student, and her friend Monica Goyanko, a Blacksburg local, look at some of the accessories available. The cash mob visited Homebody, a sweatshop-free and fair trade store in downtown Blacksburg on March 8, 2012. The next cash mob will be March 24th at 11:32am.
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Benny’s co-owner, Chris Brown, referred to the app as the future of marketing, but is still unsure of what to expect.
“It’s a promising app to bring business in at times when it’s slow, but mostly we’re not sure, so we’re trying it out to see how it goes this Thursday,” Brown said, “We’re excited about it, we’re excited to see how it goes.”
In order to receive the dicount, students need to RSVP via their iPhone to get the barcode to present at the time of purchase. This allows the business to have an estimate of how many people are attending and lets Plurro see how much they’ve spent.
In addition, there will be a reward system for active users. Five points will be rewarded to users everytime they start a cash mob, attending a cash mob grants two points, and following a restaurant gives users one point. The accumulation of points can lead to higher discounts in the future by a business as well as allow a business to recognize individuals who are frequent visitors.
Libby Bish, a recent Tech grad and Plurro marketing associate, encouraged inagurating Plurro in Blacksburg.
“It’s such a great community and I think they would be really receptive to something like this and really be able to accept the idea and run with it. There is a lot of people down there open to new ideas,” Bish said.
Despite the four already scheduled cash mobs, some students are hesitant to initiate a cash mob.
“I might start doing it after others. It might take a while to get its feet off the ground,” said Nolan Henry, a junior pyschology and statistics major.
Bish and Muhato encourage students to take advantage of the easy-navigatable app in order to save money.
The app puts the power in the hands of the students to create cash mobs for discounts at their favorite places, said Muhato.
Plurro will be launching at Penn State next. In the next six months, they expect to expand to 30-50 campuses nationwide. During that time frame, they will also be making the app available on Android.
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A version of this article appeared in the Oct 3 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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So they can sign up "in advance" or "prior to attending"? Well written ! And how do you think a restaurant is going to handle 50 random people showing up ? I bet not well.
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The next Downtown Blacksburg, Inc. organized Cash Mob will take place on Thursday October 18 at 5:32pm.Meet by the murals in Market Square Park
The destination businesses will be announced at the assigned time (5:32pm)
October CashMob- supporting two local downtown businesses and our downtown school- Harding Avenue Elementary School. Having fun with a different sort of flash mob.....a Cash Mob. We all go to a local business on a specific date and time and give them an extraordinary time of patronage! Then we'll all go and get to know each other over a drink or snack at one of our local watering holes! No need to spend a ton of money, but just join in by being a patron of any level. A real way to be a true part of our downtown community.
Follow @CMdtblacksburg on Twitter for updates
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Because everyone is going to be showing up at the exact same time, right? Not.
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The businesses will all know well in advance - they agree to be a part of the cash mob, so they'll prepare wonderfully for the mob!!
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This sounds like a great idea for students to save money and get out in to the town. Excited to see how these play out and where Plurro does its next cash mobs!
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sounds like an awesome idea
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They don't need to have the software installed on their computer.Meanwhile, what Mike would really like to do is make a trip to a Final Four as his alma mater is in the Top 10 and he's sure they are going to make it a long ways in the "Big Dance".The accountancy firms have lost revenue in M&A and real estate but made up ground <a href="http://www.myoffice2010.com/microsoft-office-2010-key-c-43.html">Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Student download</a> in specialist taxes and areas such as restructuring.This might include editing stuff for new items, creating a URL link to a mobile website, making email notifications on a list or library possible, managing views and templates on a list, managing flow of work, adding and managing column properties and so on.This provides possibly decreasing the number of injuries sustained whilst exercising.
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BTW- we host a Cash Mob EVERY MONTH and have done so since March this year. We typically see 20-40 participants turning up, we shop together and then celebrate by dining together. We notify the store and the restaurant to be mobbed at least a week before the assigned date and time. We have just 3 rules (in compliance with the International Cash Mob organizations)- Spend $20, meet 3 new people and the most important- HAVE FUN! And you don't have to use an i-phone to participate!
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