Mobile Commerce Minute

Nope, this isn't 1987 and Andrew McCarthy is nowhere to be found but we are talking about smart mannequin's and how they are set to enable mobile commerce. Chuck explores what happens when you combine beacons embedded into mannequin's and a smartphone...all brought to you by Iconeme.

Right now, the smartphone is the hub of much of what we do. Most services, wearables and transactions rely on the computing power found on the smartphone (or through the smartphone to the cloud) to function properly. Think of your FitBit connecting to your phone to power your step count for example. Chuck shows us some examples of the complementary tech that relies on the smartphone as the hub of our digital lives. 

It's always good to lean back and take a look at the mobile industry numbers once in a while and today we are doing just that. Chuck has accumulated the most pertinent mobile percentages and lists them out to give us perspective on this industry we all love. From low to high, here is the mobile industry.

The word of the fall in retail is going to be beacons with good reason. There are a number of innovative companies that have been experimenting with their use and this fall will see them commit fully to them. Chuck gives us a run down of the companies that are in this category - the ones that aren't sitting back and waiting for the end of retail. What will retail look like in the fall? Here's a glimpse.

Notifications are emerging as the new mobile operating system. As mobile users find themselves buried in apps that once held promise but have somehow found their way off the main screen, notifications can help bring the value back if they are done right. A recent study by GroupM looks at the willingness and concerns consumers have with notifications and the results should leave everyone feeling opportunistic. Bottom line? Do notifications properly and there will be prosperity. However, the opposite is also true.

People don't want to buy from a smartphone. This according to a huge study by GroupM. They do want to shop from them but most companies don't factor that into their research - they simply look at the transactions. Could the most important thing to measure become the wish list or what goes into the shopping cart? Many retailers at the forefront of mobile commerce are focusing there and this strategy will make a ton of sense once you watch this episode.

Retail is the first industry to grasp the importance of beacons as a hardware platform but beacons require much more effort than affix and spam. According to new research from BI Intelligence, there are going to be thousands of these things in circulation by the end of the year - mostly in retail - which can be good, only if retailers (and all businesses for that matter) heed Chucks words in this episode.

If you've ever wanted to know what a committed mobile shopper looks like you don't have to wander too far - Chuck is our ultimate beta tester for all things mobile payments. He wandered out, mobile in hand, to some of the biggest retailers in the United States to see what benefit mobile brings. These are the results.

And the future of beacon commerce is being led by...sausages? That's right, as more and more companies explore the benefits of bringing beacons into their sales and marketing organizations there are a few companies that are already out there testing. Hillshire Farm is one of those companies and they are teaching the rest of the retailers something about this emerging retail tool and the results are staggering.

Two new studies on mobile payments done by Nielson and the National Retail Federation looked at the habits of actual participants in the mobile commerce and payments world. The studies were not as it relates to the whole population but only included the people already paying with their  smartphones. Chuck summarizes both in 2 minutes here.

 

If you are among the early mobile commerce adopters you are now an RSTP - you research, scan, tap and pay with your device - and you are a part of the elite forward thinking mobile users...for now.