mCommerce/mShopping
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.”
Mobile blueprint for luxury brands
Why Mobile for Luxury
- The audience is on mobile devices
- One out of two mobile phones in use by next year projected to be Web- and application-enabled smartphones
- Consumers don’t simply talk and text on mobile phones – they browse, shop and buy
- Mobile devices give what consumers seek in the relationship with brands – control
- More content consumption on mobile – news, in particular – offers opportunity for contextual advertising
- Part of the multichannel experience
- Steve Jobs – the No. 1 influencer today of product design, marketing, commerce and customer experience
What Consumers Want from Mobile
- Ease of communication with friends, family, coworkers and brands
- Ability to search, shop and buy on the device
- Receive SMS-based offers, updates and retail traffic drivers when opted into mobile CRM programs
- Browse mobile Web sites and applications for product information, store location, pricing, inventory availability and in-store merchandise reference
- Same experience as online
- Rich media experiences on tablets such as the iPad
Crafting a Mobile Strategy for Luxury Brands
- Study audience habits – buying and media-consumption patterns
- Is the product or service suited to mobile marketing or mobile commerce?
- Discuss channel conflict issues internally
- What have you done on the traditional Web?
- Will the luxury experience and brand values translate well to mobile?
- Marketing or sales, or both – make objective clear
- Mobile is a medium comprising many channels, but it also serves well as a traffic driver to retail or online experiences
- Dedicate the resources – HR, budgets, time and patience
Luxury Marketing with Mobile
- Establish a mobile-friendly Web site, even if it’s a simple landing page and a couple of other pages reflecting the brand values and core information
- Apply for a common short code to begin SMS marketing that ties in with the brand’s overall loyalty marketing efforts
- Run targeted mobile advertising on reputed publisher sites and across mobile ad networks with banner ads, rich media units and video
- Mobile search optimization – work with Google, Microsoft and Yahoo
- Deep pockets? Build a full-fledged mobile site and application with shopping and transactional capability
- Use retail stores and catalogs to drive mobile database buildup
- Employ SMS to opted-in consumers to push traffic to stores
- Promote short code signup and application downloads in print, television, mail, online and catalog ads
- Repurpose runway material on mobile to extend the luxury experience
Brands That Get Mobile
Tiffany & Co. marries mobile with interactive to sell engagement rings
Ferrari Maserati dealership taps mobile for added customer touch point
Chanel taps iPad’s unique capabilities to showcase watch collection
Jimmy Choo taps mobile to make print ad more interactive
Rolex taps mobile to make rint ad more interactive
Rogers & Hollands Jewelers mobile program drives repeat business
Gilt Groupe iPad app comprises 3 percent of sales in first 2 days
Mobile is a wrap for Diane von Furstenberg
Bergdorf Goodman enters mobile commerce
Nordstrom, kate spade, T-Mobile use mobile to boost in-store traffic
Waterford Crystal extends brand to mobile with new app
Gucci enters mobile commerce arena with one-of-a-kind app
Bloomingdale’s fall fashion campaign taps mobile to engage customers in-store
Tiffany & Co. targets luxurious ladies via smartphones
Dolce & Gabbana dresses marketing strategy with mobile
from: Mickey Alam Khan Mobile Marketer, June 28, 2010
Amazon’s approach to mobile
Amazon is now offering its one-click shopping technology to other retailers, and why not: it has a database of an estimated 94 million names, many of whom will overlap with other retailers’ customers.
Search. Take a look at any Amazon destination across mobile, be it the mobile site for BlackBerry, iPhone or Android devices or the iPhone or iPad applications or even its own proprietary Kindle devices – the search field is prominent on every page.
Here’s what retailers should know: browsing has become synonymous with searching. A site or application without a decent search engine is toast. Amazon gets this pattern of behavior, as does Google.
Amazon understands that mobile shoppers do not have the time nor the energy to thumb through tens of pages on mobile sites or applications. Shoppers on mobile visit their retail destination with some determination of what they want. Alternatively, the mobile-shopping mood is “Surprise me – but don’t make it a slog.”
It’s often been remarked that Amazon is a technology company, and not a retailer. And the search engine is proof of that. It is designed to be as intuitive as can get and mobile is a beneficiary of that investment over 15 years.
A cursory look at the top searches on Amazon’s mobile applications and sites show a preference for HDMI cables, xBox 360, Kindle DX, headphones, PS3 and Starcraft 2 games, iPod Nano, authors Nora Roberts and Charlaine Harris, and, yes – the girl with the dragon tattoo.
It won’t be a stretch to imagine that these are some of the same items being searched on over the flagship Amazon.com site.
Comparison shopping. Now here’s the interesting corollary to that search-engine investment: mobile shoppers are visiting Amazon’s sites and applications to research prices of products – while in other retailers’ stores.
In effect, Amazon is on its way to becoming the best mobile comparison shopping engine. And what are people comparing? Prices and availability.
Hence another unusual shopping pattern is developing: mobile shoppers are placing orders on Amazon at all hours of the day, and not just in the evenings or during lunch or over weekends.
Imagine how vulnerable most retailers are if this pattern becomes entrenched behavior. It threatens not just mobile retailers, but all those bricks-and-mortar chains that compete in Amazon’s retail categories.
Mobile database. By sheer dint of investing millions of dollars in mobile technology, Amazon has ensured that it grows its database of shoppers to include a new category: mobile.
Of course, as is the case with most retailers, it is hard to quantify mobile or online orders as incremental to the overall revenue picture. But even if it’s a channel shift, better to cannibalize your own self than have a rival retailer take the mobile order.
As more consumers shop and buy on Amazon’s mobile sites or applications or via Kindle, it is recording patterns of shopping behavior for remarketing purposes. Expect soon offers on mobile that are tied to past purchases with the same accuracy as it has done online.
Another major advantage of encouraging more mobile shopping and buying will manifest itself over the upcoming holidays. Holiday shopping is all about gifts, and that process is incomplete without the recipient’s address.
So, with more mobile purchases for self and others, Amazon shoppers are already making life easier for themselves and the retailers by having the gift recipients’ addresses stored for future sales via mobile devices.
Indeed, this is something most retailers forget: it is not easy to shop for others with a credit card in one hand, phone in the other and the gift recipient’s address missing or on another piece of paper.
Backend integration. While most retailers fuss over the front end of their digital operations, Amazon’s growing mobile commerce sales has given it much practice in integrating the mobile order-taking process with online.
To gain billion-dollar status in mobile commerce must mean that Amazon has efficiently tied its order management, warehouses, and fulfillment and shipping systems into one seamless operation. The returns process is also seamless since it follows the same protocol as an online order – email confirmation of order and address labels in package.
THE POINT OF all this is simple: every day that passes is millions more dollars in Amazon’s mobile pocket. If consumers get used to shopping and buying from Amazon’s mobile properties, that retailer could soon become the dominant standard for mobile shopping.
A major danger for retailers still sitting on the sidelines of mobile commerce is that price often trumps brand loyalty in tough economic conditions. And Amazon is a past master at offering prices that few can match. Top that with enviable customer service and you have the ideal killer app for mobile.
from: Mickey Alam Khan Mobile Marketer, July 26, 2010
MasterCard and M-Commerce
MasterCard has launched a new app that promotes mobile purchases by creating very limited one time offer with extreme discounts. The offers are made available thanks to MasterCard’s partnership with e-commerce company Next Jump, which already powers the desktop version of the MasterCard Marketplace website, launched in April.
MasterCard seems intent on tapping into the growing m-commerce trend, potentially a $2.2 billion dollar industry by the end of this year according to ABI Research. The Marketplace app is just one of many the company has launched for the device in recent months. It also has MoneySend, a person-to-person mobile payments application, Easy Savings Program, an app that locates nearby discounts from participating merchants,Priceless Picks, an app that lets shoppers share great deals with each other anywhere around the world and an ATM finder application. Unfortunately for Android users, the only app MasterCard has ported to that platform is its one-off app, “Flavours of Shanghai 2010,” designed specifically for EXPO 2010.
What Akamai is doing to further m-commerce
In the U.S., less than 1% of e-commerce is mobile. In Japan, it’s 20%. The mobile networks are not going to be able to keep up with this growth. You’re breaking the normal pattern in the growth of traffic. So something has to be done. It doesn’t have to be Akamai, but it has to be something.
In particular with mobile delivery, you have packet loss problems. (Packet loss is when portions of data fail to reach their destination.) In the mobile protocol, if there is packet loss in the first delivery, the further requests to go back and retrieve that lost data are done more slowly, the thought being that there were problems with the first delivery, so you had better slow down. That means that if you have holes in that first data delivery in a cell network, you’re pretty much out of luck.
Akamai will have available soon a server nearby a cellphone tower that can detect the device and customize the experience being delivered for that device. Toward the end of the year, they’ll be extending deep into the cellphone networks. It makes a difference if the server to those networks is 10 miles away or a hundred miles away. If the round-trips are shorter (to retrieve the data dropped by packet loss), the screen will fill faster.
Chase adds mobile-deposit capabilities to existing app
The first of the big four national banks to offer such capabilities. this highlights two important trends we’re seeing in mobile banking:
- Functionality IS the message in mobile banking.
- The mobile phone should be thought of as the bank teller, not as a billboard.
