Mobile Retail - Coming to any Store near You

February 17th, 2009 | by PHC |

Forrester’s Sucharita Mulpuru (@smulpuru) has a new research report out with interesting findings about emerging trends in mobile and multi-channel retail. Overall, the report confirms that the mobile web is on the cusp of becoming a game-changer for both web and brick-and-mortar retailers. Smartphone users are becoming as likely to make an online purchase on the go as they are to use their smartphones in the context of a brick-and-mortar purchase.

Consumers Use Mobile Phones For Multichannel Retail according to Forrester

Competition is moving inside stores. A case in point is the Amazon App - an amazing iPhone app that enables users to take pictures of products they like to see if they could find them through Amazon and add them to their wishlist. With this app, Amazon will not only capture demand from consumers’ casual encounters with products they like, but also prey on shopping malls and department stores.

Price arbitrage is becoming much easier. Applications like ShopSavvy enables users to scan product bar codes to compare prices online and in nearby stores. Even without these apps, customers use their smartphones to make online purchases with in-store delivery if they find it more advantageous, only heightening cannibalizing within the same franchise.

Product and service information is becoming more accessible and more transparent. Two popular examples show that retailers’ traditional information advantage is further eroded, with relevant information being delivered in the hands of consumers while they shop. The GoodGuide iPhone app, for instance, delivers ratings about green, healthy and organic products right to your pocket and while you shop. The Yelp iPhone app delivers location-based user reviews and pictures of shops and services.

The advent of the mobile web ushers new challenges and opportunities for retailers. Empowering their sales force with loyalty program offerings and/or some form of price-matching latitude could help retailers tactically meet these challenges in the short run. Retailers should also consider the upside in mobile interactions, from delivering personalized, social or value-added information to sending location-based time-bound coupons to mobile users.

Viewing 2 Comments

Guillaume Lebleu 1 year ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

Great post. I was wondering whether bookstores and other traditional retail shops should not embrace the Amazon App and actually provide it in their stores via a more convenient method of UPC barcode scanning "see how much you can get this item for at Amazon.com and when it will be at your doorstep". Users could then possibly print a receipt with a shopping cart session code that the user would enter back home at Amazon.com. This would be a great way for the real-life store to get a share of the revenue via the Amazon Associate program.

reply edit reblog flag

2 /people/glebleu/ /people/glebleu/following/ http://lebleu.org/

Pierre Henri Clouin 1 year ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

This is a terrific idea for brick-and-mortar retailers to at least capture some affiliate fees rather than nothing. It is an excellent case in point showing the potentially dramatic disruptions to retailers' traditional business model. I am not sure though that retailers would welcome becoming only a "showroom". In any case, that might be a way for Amazon to expand its associate program into brick-and-mortar retail.

reply edit reblog flag

2 /people/phclouin/ /people/phclouin/following/ http://clouin.com http://twitter.com/phclouin phclouin phc.clouin.com