Mobile Commerce Minute

A recent study by Moxie Software found that a good majority of us would rather consult our phones instead of a sales person. Chuck examines what this means for consumers, retailers and how the combination of mobile and in-store customer service will work together (or not).

Target and Home Depot have rolled out their in-store, in-aisle offerings and Chuck headed out to test them both. Looking for a snow brush and a tarp, his journey took him to both stores and this is his experience.

It seems fitting that we look at some shopping numbers as we enter the "shopping season" in North America. Chuck takes us through the new Apigee study around customer expectations in retail done in conjunction with Standford University's Mobile Innovation Group. We summarize the impact that mobile is having on the shopping experience, the app vs non-app spending habits, the amount of spend from mobile users and what the true benefit of a retailer app is. 

How many people do beacons really reach today? That's the question that Chuck tackles on this episode. We are starting to see audited, authenticated numbers and those numbers are growing. From third party apps tapping into the beacons inside a Lord & Taylor to Estimote's incredible pool of developers, there is no doubt that we are being rapidly blanketed by a cozy cover of beacons. The beacons are there, what's their actual human reach. Watch the episode.

Chuck had the opportunity to visit the new Paydiant offices - they are the company behind MCX and Subway's mobile payments app. While there, Chuck was given a tour of their Customer Experience Lab to see the things they are working on when it comes to the future of mobile payments and what he saw was very exciting. This is the summary of his visit and includes Paydiant CEO Chris Gardner's view on the one real battle that merchants should be focused on - and it isn't payments.

Mobile influence is crazy when it comes to our purchase behaviour so it shouldn't be a shock when someone dissects its impact on a segment of the shopping population. This time around it is mothers and mothers to be and the mobile influence on their shopping patterns is undeniable. The last 3 years have seen incredible growth for mobile use among this demographic and Chuck highlights this via the results of a recent survey by Babycenter.

A new study by AT Kearney examines the global consumer's motivation to get online and, of course, Chuck breaks it down for the mobile crowd here. The simple truth is that all of us, in any country, age category and economic status have different reasons, habits and patterns for mobile use. That being said there are commonalities that have emerged and that's what the focus of this episode is on.

Chuck visited New York based Verve to hear how they see where beacons play in the consumer path to purchase. What came of it is summarized in this episode and may signify the emergence of a new way to categorize beacons in retail: Passive vs. active. Whatever the terminology, perhaps what this really means is the the end of dreaded mobile banner ad and the start of the "mobile advertising as a valued service" era.

Every month Euclid Analytics releases their numbers on physical in-store activity in their Retail Benchmark report. They use smartphones to track consumers as they window shop, browse inside the store and leave - think of them as the same as web analytics for physical retail. They do this by analyzing hundreds of millions of potential shopping sessions per year across thousands of locations - all of it opt in and all of it anonymous. Chuck summarizes the latest report which saw a mixed bag of results.

Is it possible that we are entering the post-beacon era already? On one end we are still learning the impact that beacons can have on purchase decisions inside of stores but one enterprising company is looking at how beacons fit in the long game. Beinto has recently partnered with Gimbal to use beacons to capture consumer behavioural data in real-time and use it later to serve up more relevant ads and product offerings. Chuck calls this post-beaconing and he goes into detail about that here.