After trialling it on Sydney’s northern beaches, News Corp is rolling out its LocalShoppa offers app to 130 more areas. It is also considering taking it to non-News areas.

Head of digital Elizabeth McDonald says the location-based smartphone app – which shows discount offers and on-the-spot deals within 25 kilometres – gives advertisers easy control.

News Corp Australia trialled the app in the geographical footprint of its Manly Daily community newspaper to test the product before rolling it out to the other 21 newspaper mastheads in New South Wales.

“The app is hyperlocal with a default 25-kilometre ring fence, which can be shortened or lengthened,” she says. “As users travel around with their phones, ring fences change to the area of the phone’s location.”

Users can also sort by category or retailer and mark ‘favourites’ to receive push notifications for when a new deal goes live. For advertisers, a self-service portal enables them to upload, manage and change local deals in real time.

“If a coffee shop owner is having a slow lunch period, the owner can instantly push out a one-hour only offer such as ‘buy one sandwich, get one free’,” she says.

“Unlike most deal apps that take a percentage of the client’s product or service, Local Shoppa advertisers pay a flat rate of A$220 a month for access to the platform. They can have five deals running at any one time.”

News licenses the Local Shoppa app – which uses GPS technology, favourites and category push notifications – and platform from a third party.

McDonald says that in addition to the 130-centre rollout, there is “potential to move into territories not currently serviced by News Corp”.