ARTICLE 2 FROM VOLUME 2:
MOBILE IS A SHOPPING GAME-CHANGER, FOR THE IN-STORE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE TOO
For retailers behind the curve, adding Social Retail can have a big impact.
For the largest retailers able to invest heavily in their own mobile app, in-store Mobile Shopping has proven its value in two of the most important metrics in measuring customer engagement – increasing customer loyalty and enhancing a retailer’s Single Customer View. A mobile app can seamlessly engage a customer in the store or at home, and can be what gets more customers to visit a store. By providing exciting, immersive shopping experiences on a retailer’s mobile app, a customer can be initially engaged with the retailer, even from home. In turn, she is more likely to invest in a trip to the store to get a physically immersive experience, check out a product, or talk to a sales person. Most important, they feel a greater connection to that retailer if they love the app experience, which builds the customer connection and loyalty.
These Mobile Shopping app experiences can also help drive Single Customer View data for a retailer. Wish lists, favorite brands and influencers, birthday and favorite holidays, are the obvious examples of the customer self-disclosing within an app to help a retailer learn more about her. Other self-disclosed data points about the customer that are not so obvious include response rate to various types of promotions, preferred mode of communication, quick surveys during a customer’s down time when she has a phone and is looking for a distraction, etc. Simply put, when a customer uses a much more immersive and full-featured Mobile Shopping app (as opposed to a utilitarian desktop experience), and she uses the same device every single time which can also deliver persistent data tracking and features like push notifications, then the customer is much more likely to self-disclose all kinds of data about herself while using a mobile app vs. a desktop. Some retailers, like Macy’s, Best Buy, and Target, have invested millions in their Mobile Shopping app and ecommerce functionality and features, but other retailers are certainly struggling to catch up.
We believe that Social Retail, combined with Mobile Shopping, will play an important role in helping these retailers to catch up – by making an early-stage retailer app more feature-rich with less investment in features and functionality! With the simple app-based feed and social community provided as Software as a Service (SaaS) Mobile by Brand Media ID, as a standalone app or integrated into a retailer’s already developed app using a standard API, retail staff, retail marketers, brand marketers, and influencers large and small can communicate with the retailer’s customers – and then the customer’s reactions to the various messaging in this feed and their growing community adds to the Single Customer View of her. As such, future marketing messages can become more and more tailored as her interests become clearer over time.
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