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.

  • http://multichannel-musings.blogspot.com Stuart Barker

    Could the economic downturn blight planned mCommerce efforts? Or, can we expect the more forward looking retailers seeing this as a growth potential and an opportunity to buck the trend?

    Gartner are also working on similar research, though what I've seen, they believe the market for mCommerce is still relatively small.

    In any case, here's hoping this is the year that retailers grab mobile commerce with both hands!

  • http://clouin.com Pierre Henri Clouin

    The current environment will slow down more than one mobile commerce experiments. By the same token, smart retailers like Amazon will leverage technology to grab market share from other retailers.

    The market for mobile commerce might still be relatively small, but the impact of mobile apps and services in the hands of a critical mass of smart phone users will be felt by retailers in the 2009 Holiday season.

  • http://lebleu.org/ Guillaume

    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.

  • http://lebleu.org/ Guillaume Lebleu

    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.

  • http://clouin.com Pierre Henri Clouin

    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.

  • http://clouin.com Pierre Henri Clouin

    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.

  • http://lebleu.org/ Guillaume Lebleu

    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.

  • http://clouin.com Pierre Henri Clouin

    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.

  • http://clouin.com/2010/redlaser-brings-focus-to-mobile-retail-apps-with-2m-downloads/ RedLaser Brings Focus to Mobile Retail Apps with 2M Downloads | clouin.com

    [...] Overall, this success is an early confirmation of the potential for blending always-on Internet access with the brick-and-mortar shopping experience. [...]