Who will own mobile retail on Black Friday? Posted on November 22, 2011 Post a comment

In 2009, pundits predicted that 2010 would be “The Year of Mobile.” When that didn’t quite pan out, in 2010 experts revised their prediction and said 2011 would be “The Year of Mobile.” Looking back over the year, yes, we’ve made great strides on the mobile front, but 2012 looks much more likely to win the title of the “Real Year of Mobile.” Here’s why: we are on the cusp of retailers coming to the mobile party in a real way.

Retail giants like Target, Walmart, and Home Depot released a slew of mobile apps just in time for the 2011/2012-holiday season. These applications allow users to view sale items, check stock, create wish lists, find deals in-store—even watch how-to videos.

These mobile “shopping assistants” are great tools, but they have a way to go in order to help retailers keep control of the brick-and-mortar shopping experience. Groupon, Living Social, and other “deal of the day” services all condition consumers to be price and promotion sensitive. Dealirious, even. Lowe’s responded to this trend by equipping their sales staff in select stores with iPhones to be able to consult with customers about and search for products—even change the price to match that of a competitor’s.

The next step for retailers will be to know and understand the behavior of each mobile customer who walks through the door, and then be able to tailor offers and incentives to meet their individual needs.

This is what Walmart Labs exec, Anand Rajaraman, predicted at the 2011 Ad Age Digital West Conference held in September of this year. He envisioned a world that relies on a seamless threshold from computer to mobile and from home to out-of-home: a world in which customers are recognized and rewarded for shopping in stores through discounts and loyalty rewards.

“The previous era was about taking the store and bringing it to the web. We believe the next generation, one of the dominant themes is bringing the web to the store.” he said.

The handwriting has been on the digital wall for some time now—retailers that don’t aggressively adopt mobile will be playing a serious game of catch up. Not with each other, but with consumers and with the countless shopping apps consumers hold in the palms of their hands in-store. Unless retailers give consumers a reason to pay attention to them with tools and connections that are one-to-one centered, they may truly end as Amazon’s showroom and nothing more.