Smartphones and Retail - Go Mobile, Now!

A recent Deloitte study (click here to download the pdf) shows that smartphones currently influence 5% of annual retail store sales, translating into $159 billion in forecasted sales for 2012 and will grow to represent 19% of total store sales by 2016, amounting to $689 billion in mobile-influenced sales. By comparison, direct mobile commerce sales will pass the $30 billion mark by that time, according to Forrester. In addition, the study shows:

• 48% of all U.S. consumers already own a smartphone, and that number is rising fast.
• 58% of consumers who own a smartphone have used it for store-related shopping. 
• 50% percent of smartphone users say their phones have influenced their decision to purchase an item in a store, mainly happening at or near the point of purchase. 
• 37% of smartphone users who used a smartphone on their last shopping trip utilized a third-party mobile shopping application (i.e., Amazon Price Check, Google Shopper, ShopSavvy) and 34% used a retailer’s mobile application (i.e., Walgreens, Home Depot) 
• Once consumers start using their smartphones for shopping they tend to use them a lot — typically for 50-60% of their store shopping trips 

This means that mobile is an important tool for retailers to incrementally drive traditional in-store sales, strengthening the relationship between retailer and consumer to increase engagement and loyalty. Moreover, competitors like Amazon are exploiting this trend with their mobile apps (e.g., Amazon Price Check app) to invade the retail stores and drive the customers away. 

Below we show what indoor location solutions retailers can deploy to take proactive actions to reduce the outside threat and start using mobile to their advantage: 

aisle411 can help retain control of the customer experience and proactively support what info consumers have access to at each stage of the shopping process, i.e., recipes, product search, aisle-level indoor maps to show where product is inside the store. Walgreens and others are already using this solution. 

ShopKick gives users rewards and offers simply for walking into stores. ShopKick's indoor location technology is very accurate, able to determine if the user is inside the store. Target, Macy's, Best Buy, Crate Barrel, Old Navy, Toys"R"Us, Exxon and Mobil convenience stores are already using this solution.

The team behind Euclid are the folks brought Google Analytics. Euclid offers location based analytics to brick and mortar retailers. Retailers get better insights into customer loyalty, i.e. what percent of customers come back to the store versus new customers. This may be particularly interesting to look at after running a Groupon deal.

For more details on the above solutions and others, see our Market Report here. Go mobile and help insulate your customers from outside influences and boost in-store conversion rates now!