New Mobile Shopping Services Increase Competition

We all know people that seem to approach shopping like it is a contact sport. They know their favorite retailers, they shop often, they know when and where to find the bargains, and they aren't afraid to bump a few elbows to get them. While many of us may not aspire to be one of these top shopping athletes, new mobile services are helping the average shopper compete better for the bargains. This is presenting both challenges and opportunities for today's retailers.

Imagine your customer shopping in the store, browsing your amazingly deep and broad assortment, complete with fancy fixtures and signage. After carefully considering the choices, they decide. But before they head to the checkout, they input the product into their cell phone and in just a few seconds, find out how much all the other local retailers and online retailers sell this same product for. Additionally, they receive a coupon for one of the other retailers, and suddenly they are leaving your merchandising display intact and searching for a way to exit the store without getting into a checkout line. This may sound like a futuristic scenario, but there are offerings today that make it a reality. Here are two examples:

• Nearbynow.com has a service that can tell you via text message all the places in the mall that have the product you are looking for and its price. As an added feature, it can also tell you where the store is in the mall and suggest the best places to park. You can even send a message back to have the inventory held for you.
• Cellfire.com has a service that will send you coupons and deals from your local merchants to your cell phone. You decide who and when you want to hear from. You can literally use the coupon on your cell phone at checkout.

Connected consumers are increasingly taking advantage of the mobility and transparency of this type of information at POP. The question for retailers is how to take advantage of these types of capabilities. Automating the delivery of coupons and product info to mobile devices as well as having a mobile Internet shopping capability are obvious ways (either directly or through the types of services discussed above). These ensure that where you have the best price, you remain competitive.

Building on those capabilities, there is also an opportunity to use mobile services to drive customized offerings to high-value customers at POP (your POP or your competitor's). This is the key to changing the value proposition from a purely price-based commodity. To do this, you need to understand who your best (most profitable) customers are, what they care about, and create offerings based on their long-term value, as opposed to just the value of the current transaction. Whether your best customers are top athletes or just average shoppers, creating differentiation in experiences that result in loyalty is all about treating your best customers better than anyone else.