Wednesday, January 6, 2010
In-Store Shoppers with Smartphones: The New Reality for Retailers
In my new eMarketer report examining how Web access enhances the in-store shopping experience, I mention that the increasing number of shoppers arriving at stores with smartphones poses both a threat and an opportunity for retailers. This is borne out by new research from Compete, a tracker of online consumer behavior.
The threat comes from in-store shoppers using their phones to check sales prices at other retailers. Compete found that 41% of iPhone users and 43% of Android users do just that. The threat was well articulated by Dave Sikora, the founder and CEO of mobile service provider Digby, in a conversation we had in July 2009 [the full version of the interview is available here]:
You could argue that every retailer on the planet is an off-balance-sheet showroom for Amazon. So if you go into a retailer’s store and you see something you like—type in that manufacturer’s SKU number and check the price on Amazon. You’ve looked at it, you’ve touched it, felt it, and now you’re getting the benefit of potentially getting the best price on it too.
Retailers that ignore the growing number of mobile Internet users will see their customers defect to competitors. A retailer’s best defense for maintaining customer loyalty is to develop a mobile offering that allows in-store shoppers access to customer reviews and other product information on its Website. This is where the opportunity lies for retailers. By providing mobile access to their extensive online product information, they help customers feel more comfortable about making a purchase. According to Compete, 39% of iPhone owners and 31% of Android owners use their smartphones for this purpose.
Sephora, the beauty products retailer, launched a mobile Website with thousands of product reviews intended to help store shoppers evaluate and compare items. In a November 2009 interview with Internet Retailer, Julia Bornstein, senior VP of Sephora Direct, said:
We’ve found that the mobile site is driving sales in stores. It’s keeping some customers in stores longer by giving them all this information at their fingertips.
Big box retailers should be jumping on this asap. Smaller or independent chains will likely suffer with lack of investment in mobile inventory or app that drives engagement.
[...] Dabitch wrote an interesting post today  Here’s a quick excerpt  An increasing number of shoppers arrive at stores with smartphones. They pose both a threat and an opportunity for retailers. [...]
This is going to increase not only due to the increase of mobile users, but also because of the state of the economy. People are always trying to find the best price. I can see this becoming a big thing for buying books for college. Amazon tends to have the same books priced a lot lower than the books directly on campus.
[...] it doesn’t say so, this post yesterday on eMarketer.com suggests that providing incentives designed to keep your mobile savvy customers in store is [...]
I think retailers should make sure that their staff is knowledgeable about the pricing of their products online as well. I went to Best Buy over the holidays to get a laptop and was quoted the price of a laptop battery way above the cost of the same battery online. This type of misinformation staff could get away with before can easily be verified on the spot with a mobile phone and can negatively impact a customer’s trust in a retailer.
Some iPhone apps allow you to scan the barcode as well! I have to admit I’m a big browser while at a retail location.
Actually just wrote about it on my personal blog: http://www.ernestbarbaric.com/2010/01/how-to-choose-best-books-on-the-run/
This shift in retail reality does allow for great improvements in tech savvy marketing and customer engagement. If you take the H&M App or even the PizzaHut App and massage it into a retail application or even a bluetooth proximity marketing application, new opportunities are endless!
Thanks for a great post!
[...] week, eMarketer shared some ideas and data on smartphone use while shopping in-store. While it’s true that [...]
[...] sorprendió el dato de un estudio donde se medía cuantos clientes usaban su teléfono en la tienda para COMPARAR LOS PRECIOS de la tienda con los de otras tiendas online u offline. El porcentaje en [...]
You want to know what a mobile phone is really like before you buy it. Not just that it has a 1Ghz Snapdragon processor and an AMOLED screen. You want to know what it is actually like to use, own and live with, right?
Battle of the Smartphones will give you LOADS of user generated reviews of not just phones, but networks and trade-in deals too!
Check out http://www.battleofthesmartphones.com/
[...] game, the main competitor to Foursquare. Instore-shopping with Smart Phones – More details here Lifestreaming – diary of your electronic content as well as a place to view all your electronic [...]
[...] game, the main competitor to Foursquare. Instore-shopping with Smart Phones – More details here Lifestreaming – diary of your electronic content as well as a place to view all your electronic [...]
[...] there are a series of Smartphone apps which do exactly that. UPC driven, these apps bring social media to the store-shelf by helping [...]
[...] There’s clearly a big consumer need for relevant information at the store-shelf.Today, there are a series of Smartphone apps which do exactly that. UPC driven, these apps bring social media to the store-shelf by helping [...]
[...] There’s clearly a big consumer need for relevant information at the store-shelf.Today, there are a series of Smartphone apps which do exactly that. UPC driven, these apps bring social media to the store-shelf by helping [...]