m-commerce
M-Commerce features offered by US multichannel retailers
M-Commerce features offered by US multichannel retailers
As more in-store shoppers—especially millennials, who are used to turning to their mobile phone to stay connected anytime, anywhere—become mobile web users, demand for an in-store experience that takes advantage of web capabilities will only grow.
“In developing a mobile commerce program, a retailer should look ahead as well as think broadly,” said Mr. Grau.
“Looking ahead means not getting locked into a platform with a set of technical capabilities that cannot expand to meet new requirements,” he explained. “Thinking broadly involves fitting mobile commerce into a multichannel strategy where channels support one another so that the total effect is greater than the sum of the parts.”
Adobe Mobile Survey
Adobe releases findings on new mobile survey.
Key findings:
Mobile websites are the predominant presence of businesses in the mobile channel, accounting for the bulk of their mobile traffic and surpassing the traffic generated by downloadable mobile applications. More than 80% of the respondents said they were planning or have already deployed a mobile commerce website versus 8% with a downloadable application-only strategy.
Respondents identified four key areas of execution for their mobile strategy: 1) promotions, 2) commerce, 3) product information display, and 4) branding. Promotions emerged as the top strategic element, followed by online commerce.
Rich, full-screen image zoom and videos are the most effective ways to browse or display products, according to a majority of the respondents. Grid viewing of thumbnails is deemed most effective for browsing multiple product images.
Overall, visual merchandising features are deployed by less than one-third of the respondents. However, as many as 81% of the respondents indicated they are planning to deploy those features, suggesting richer mobile experiences will be created over the coming months. Fully 96% of the respondents ranked catalogs & brochures, alternative images, and zoom & pan as most effective.
Aislebuyer. An app that “checks out” not “checks in” and let’s you skip the line.
While everyone has been focused on the “check-in,” a brand new LBS startup has its sights set on the “check-out” instead. AisleBuyer is combination LBS plus mobile commerce app that turns the entire retail experience — from receiving relevant offers upon entry to checking-out and paying for your items — completely interactive.
Here’s how it works: A consumer downloads the app and opens it up at their favorite store. They use the smartphone’s camera to scan the barcodes of items they want to purchase or simply research. Upon scanning, the app shows you comprehensive product information like pricing, customer reviews, etc., but more importantly, provides an opportunity for the retailer to insert personalized special offers and incentives based on what the user just scanned and other variables.
While shopping, just add the items you want to your cart and you can checkout directly from the app, with no standing in line necessary. It provides a unique comprehensive experience for the user, but also provides a powerful back-end platform for the retailer as well. AisleBuyer allows for the customization of offers including the ability to utilize the “Digital Circular and Dynamic Couponing System,” which allow retailers to personalize their promotions based on demographics, location, and shopping history.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on this one. In the meantime, AisleBuyer has offered up some interesting stats to justify its postion: the value of self-checkout transactions surpassed $775 billion in 2009 and is projected to grow to more than $1.6 trillion by 2013. Nearly 20% of all transactions are now self-checkout, according to the company.
Four key areas of focus for mobile strategy
A survey from Adobe uncovered four key areas of focus for businesses’ mobile strategies: promotions, commerce, product information and branding. Seventy-five percent of respondents named promotions as the core of their mobile strategy, validating the mobile channel as an important method to drive traffic and support multi-channel commerce.
“Multi-channel shoppers tend to purchase more; therefore, companies must effectively engage customers by delivering consistent, rich experiences across all channels – including mobile – to maintain and fuel current double-digit e-commerce industry growth rates,” said Sheila Dahlgren, senior director of product marketing at Adobe. “The survey results demonstrate the opportunities that exist for companies to fully leverage rich visualization features to improve their emerging mobile presences and drive cross-channel sales.” Here’s some other interesting tidbits from the survey:
- More than 55 percent of respondents cited full-screen image zoom and videos as indispensable viewing features for driving conversion
- In addition, 96 percent of respondents asserted the most effective visual merchandising features were catalogs & brochures, alternative images, and zoom & pan
- While only 18 percent of respondents currently utilize rich visual merchandising features for mobile commerce, up to 81 percent of respondents cited plans to deploy these features, thus implying richer mobile experiences will be created and offered over the next 12 months.
Top mcommerce trends for 2010 – what’s hot and what’s not
Mobile commerce trend No. 1 – Investment
Mobile commerce trend No. 2 – Mobile couponing
Mobile commerce trend No. 3 – Location
Mobile commerce trend No. 4 – Social
Mobile commerce trend No. 5 – Analytics
E-commerce tech provider ChannelAdvisor adds m-commerce
Hot on the heels of Friday’s announcement byBigCommerce that it had introduced mobile commerce functionality with the latest version of its e-commerce platform, ChannelAdvisor Corp. is debuting an m-commerce offering that can transform merchants’ e-commerce sites into mobile sites.
ChannelAdvisor’s Mobile Webstore technology, available to clients using its Premium Webstore e-commerce platform, fully integrates with the e-commerce platform requiring no additional set-up or design. It is compatible with all mobile browsers on all major smartphones, the company says, allows mobile shoppers to log in to accounts and wish lists, provides a mobile-optimized shopping cart and checkout, and offers promotional support including coupon codes. Mobile Webstore costs $199 per month.
“A lot of our customers we help come off of eBay and they want to expand from an eBay presence. Mobile is getting some real traction in the eBay world and they are saying they’d like the ability to make sure their site is mobile-friendly,” says Scot Wingo, president and CEO. “Our new platform allows you to create a mobile store that is uniquely oriented toward these folks.”
In a test of the new technology, ChannelAdvisor client MusicFactoryDirect launched its m-commerce site several months ago and has already noticed mobile conversion increase over that of shoppers previously shopping the merchant’s e-commerce site on their smartphones, it says.
“Our customers are musicians, so they are constantly on the road and shopping from mobile devices. Before we implemented Mobile Webstore, we had a mobile bounce rate that was astronomical,” says MusicFactoryDirect e-commerce manager Stephen Leitch. “Now our bounce rate is well below 50%, and we’re finding that mobile shoppers are serious buyers, spending 130% more time on the site.”
Mobile Webstore clients also can drive traffic to their m-commerce sites, ChannelAdvisor says, by sending product feeds through ChannelAdvisor to popular mobile product comparison apps including RedLaser and ShopSavvy. Using these apps, mobile shoppers can scan the bar code of any product and instantly receive a list of web stores that carry the product along with prices.
“If your product shows up on a mobile search, but a shopper can’t navigate your mobile site, you’re going to lose a sale,” Leitch says. “For us, having a mobile store not only differentiates us, it allows us to create an experience that can turn a shopper into a longtime customer.”
