How do you put the commerce into mobile commerce?
There have been some great steps into the mobile channel in the last year, but I don’t think that anyone has yet made the most of this phenomenal opportunity; An opportunity to communicate directly with your customers, to be engaging literally from the palm of their hands, using the best interactive, audio visual and personalised technology in retail, to be selling and marketing 24/7 to your customer.
Using mobile technology, retailers can harness and exploit customers’ reliance and relationship with their phones and join up all their customer’s communication touchpoints, engagement and interaction, so they have a seamless, enhanced journey and experience with your brand.
The key to successful mCommerce, is to totally immerse & integrate ‘mobile’ within a retailer’s multi channel sales and marketing strategy. Look at how your customers are interacting with their mobiles (and this may be a % of your customer base who are especially engaged with mobile) and consider how you can transmit marketing and sales communication, product information, or helpful assistance via a mobile device, into Mrs Jones’s lifestyle, as she goes about her day to day business and journeys cross channel. How can you enhance her life and enable purchasing decisions when she is at home browsing on her mobile or on the web (‘50% off Back to School this week’), shopping in your stores (‘Scan the barcode for a camera comparison chart’), chilling in a coffee house (‘You have added True Religion jeans to your wishlist – would you like to purchase now?’), or shopping in her lunch hour (‘Would you like to collect your shopping in store, or have this order delivered to your home or workplace?’). Mobiles can even be utilized within a catalogue channel (‘Scan this barcode to see a catwalk video of this dress’).
Portaltech Reply’s recent research with eDigital Research, revealed that 25% of those polled, are already using their mobile phones, via an app, or via their mobile browsers, to compare, research or browse product in the last week alone. By providing the right information at the right time, via a mobile handset, retailers can add value to their customer’s lifestyle and shopping experience, convert and drive sales cross channel, and build customer engagement and loyalty.
Rachel Wilkinson, Head of Brand & Retail at Portaltech Reply
Tags: app, mCommerce, Mobile, smartphone