With mobile’s meteoric rise over the past few years, many marketers are having trouble reaching and connecting with audiences in a meaningful way through traditional marketing avenues. In a recent report from Mobile Commerce Daily, they detail that consumers classified as “Millennials” are particularly available to communication via mobile marketing and are highly willing to engage with brands via mobile devices and mobile applications.
“Unless brands evolve, they run the risk of becoming less relevant to consumers who are using mobile devices,” Kimber Johnson, the Managing Director of Vanity Point, states. “Marketers who are not engaging consumers where their time and attention is are placing brands at a significant disadvantage.”
Data from NetBase and Edison Research shows that among Millennials it is important “to be the first to know about a new product.” Mobile gives marketers a medium featuring immediacy that other mediums can’t touch. An active mobile-first approach by retailers in their marketing could be a strong tool for reaching Millennials not only now and but also in the future as the Millennials age.
“Nearly one-quarter of Millennials say they are willing to pay a higher price to be the first to have a new product,” said Gretchen Hoffman, vice president of marketing at NetBase.
The latest study from Informa Telecoms & Media shows that retailers can no longer rely on just their in-store POS system for transactions. Retailers need to grow their systems to offer both traditional POS and mobile payment options to their customers. According to Informa, those that offer multiple payment options, including a mobile checkout option, will be able to serve more customers and reduce loss of sales due to shoppers’ desires to avoid standing in lines.
By using mobile POS options, including check out via mobile application, retailers can serve more customers during busy times and also issue paperless receipts to customers’ e-mail addresses. The evidence to the effectiveness of mobile checkout is growing rapidly. For instance, during the 2012 holiday season, Alex and Ani added mobile checkout in several of their US stores and saw an impressive 318% increase in sales just from transactions processed by associates utilizing mobile POS terminals.
Now is an exceptional time for retailers to update their systems. “Unlike a few years ago, many vendors are now offering mobile POS terminals and support services. These vendors are also offering attractive incentives to merchants and retailers to upgrade their old terminals with new mobile POS systems,” says Shailendra Pandey, a senior analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media and author of the report.
“With the growth of users’ expectations when it comes to service and usability, improving the check out process is a key way retailers meet their customers’ needs” states Kimber Johnson, Managing Director of Vanity Point Interactive Design. “We have entered an era where consumers are demanding more in physical locations based on the excellent experiences they are having on mobile applications or web sites.”
In a new survey conducted by BuzzCity, about half (47 percent) of all shoppers plan to shop online for holiday gifts this holiday season. Buzzcity also found from their study was that 59 percent of those who holiday shop online will also shop in the store as well. Retailers should understand that it is the combination of in-store and online shopping experiences that they should cater to for the modern shopper.
BuzzCity found that key concerns of consumers are product variety (33 percent) and for it to be easy to find those products (32 percent), whether consumers are online and in the store. These concerns come above finding discounts either in stores (24 percent) and online (14 percent).
Of particular note was that 20 percent of those surveyed stated that using their mobile device to find information in the store is quicker than asking a clerk or other sales staff. Clearly it is important for businesses to consider that shoppers could be viewing their mobile applications or mobile web site when on the show room floor and provide them with the necessary tools.
“When consumers shop, they can find all the product information they need just by pulling out their smartphone,” states Kimber Johnson, Managing Director, Vanity Point. “Smart retailers are making it easier and easier for shoppers to utilized a integrated shopping approach where they can augment their in the store experience with mobile tools.”