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Why mobile must be part of the shopping experience

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 20:10:17 +0000

From shopping and buying to owning and using products, consumers’ experiences largely determine the success of both retailers and brands. By voting with their feet, wallets, and social media, consumers reward companies that make their lives easy, risk-free, and pleasurable. As proof, you can witness the extraordinary success of Amazon, Zappos, Starbucks, and others. However, as the failures of Kmart, Best Buy, Dell, Nokia, and many more illustrate, consumers also penalize with a vengeance companies that fail to meet their expectations.

Given the importance of the topic, this report provides an end-to-end view of consumers’ experience, from discovery to shopping and buying to post-purchase activities such as service and support. Data from a recent immr survey (co-sponsored by GigaOM Research) of U.S. smartphone owners was used to answer questions relating to:

Shopping experiences in brick-and-mortar stores: Relatively few (one in four) consumers are happy with their shopping experiences in brick-and-mortar stores. As an online retailer, Amazon leads on this important metric by a 2-to-1 margin.
Satisfaction with specific shopping experiences: From discovering to shopping to buying and using products and services, consumers reveal substantial opportunities to improve the overall shopping experience. Opportunities also exist in a number of special cases, including shopping for gifts, services, and events and entertainment. The latter two are especially important for local businesses.
Mobile’s impact on the shopping experience: Mobile apps significantly improve consumers’ experiences. Individuals who use a mobile app for a specific shopping experience, such as finding or comparing products, are much happier with their shopping experience than non-users.

Recommendations are presented for retailers and brands to fill these voids and help consumers along the shopping journey.

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GM turns to QR codes and smartphones for Chevy Volt info

Kevin C. Tofel — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 19:57:54 +0000

With more than 2,000 miles on our Chevy Volt in just two months, all of those little trips are adding up. If I had to guess how often one of those trips involves someone asking about the car, I’d say it happens a few times a week. I don’t mind sharing my opinions on the car, or anything other technology for that matter; I’m a blogger after all. Much of the reason I write personal experiences about a home with solar panels or a plug-in car is to share the information with folks who are interested. Now GM has made it even easier to do that: A QR code sticker for my Volt helps people learn about the car without me even being present.

The sticker arrived while I was traveling these past 10 days. It came in a new Volt owner’s kit that included a nice hardcover book that tells the story of the Volt, from concept to today. Also included are 10 small cards to hand-out when people invariably ask about the Volt. And they do, believe me.

Although I like the idea of the cards, the QR code sticker is a smart move on GM’s part to address misconceptions about the car with its large battery and gas generator.

Instead of scanning the QR code and simply being taken to the Volt’s website, the code points to a phone-friendly YouTube video showing how the Volt works. The video quality is only 360p resolution so it’s not going to eat up gobs of mobile broadband data. And at the lower resolution, it should look fine on a low-end phone. I’d rather see higher quality video on my Galaxy Note 2, since the screen is capable of viewing high-definition video, but I understand why GM presents the video for the lowest common denominator displays.

Here’s a look at the video if you don’t have a QR code scanner:

What I like about it the most is that it does exactly what I do when asked about the Volt: The video explains how it works and what the capabilities are. This way, people understand if it’s the right vehicle for them.

I’ve had someone who drives 30,000 miles a year ask me about the car, for example, and I explained that while the Volt is innovative, it wouldn’t likely fit his driving usage patters. Folks in Philadelphia, however, get the same story from me and can see that with mostly city driving, the car is one of several great options. They’d get much the same impression from the linked video simply by using their smartphone near my Volt now.

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Simon & Schuster is adding QR codes to all its print books. Will readers bite?

Laura Hazard Owen — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 17:31:02 +0000

Simon & Schuster is adding QR codes to the back jackets of all its hardcover and trade paperback titles starting this fall. The publisher hopes to use the the codes to build direct-to-consumer relationships, but will readers actually scan them?

Twenty-six percent of Simon & Schuster’s sales are now digital, and the QR codes are seen as a way to link digital and print. The codes “make it easy for consumers to visit our site and hopefully subscribe to one of our newsletters,” S&S chief digital officer Ellie Hirschhorn wrote in a recent email to employees. Scanning the QR code on a book ”will bring the consumer to the author’s mobile page on S&S.com where they can sign up for an email, browse the author’s other books and watch video.” Jackets will also include a printed link to the author’s website “so consumers without smartphones or QR scanners could still easily find the author’s page.”

S&S says consumers can use any QR scanner to read the codes. The company will track the number of scans for each title.

Will readers actually scan the codes?

As my colleague Erica Ogg recently reported:

While QR codes are popular in places like Japan, they haven’t caught on in the U.S. yet. The ability to scan these codes is almost universal in smartphones thanks to apps and built-in scanners, but people are just not embracing them: Bloomberg Businessweek recently reported that just 5 percent of Americans scanned a QR code last summer, even though the codes are popping up in 8 percent of print ads.

In the piece linked to above, Bloomberg Businessweek quotes a digital ad agency director who says, “Very few people want to visit your corporate website to begin with. Fewer want to do it when they’re out in the world or reading a magazine.” The article also says that fewer ad agencies are using QR codes these days since customers don’t seem to care about them.

Simon & Schuster’s QR code initiative probably isn’t expensive and it’s worth a try. But it remains to be seen whether readers really care about checking out an author page on a publisher website. And readers who try to scan the codes in bookstores will likely get frowns from booksellers who think they’re using a barcode scanner like Amazon’s price check app to find a cheaper price online.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock / gualtiero boffi

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What food goes well with syrah? Ask your wine bottle

Erica Ogg — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 16:36:20 +0000

Credit: Moore Brothers Wine Company

You know how you’re sitting in a restaurant and you know what kind of wine you want to drink (Tempranillo, please) and later, when you’re happily sipping and scanning the menu you think, ugh, so which food is this wine supposed to go with, again? A steak? Roasted chicken? Thai food?

This happens to me all the time. Thankfully — as with most things we write about here — people are using technology to sort this out. There’s a wine seller called Moore Brothers Wine Company near me that’s printing QR codes on all the bottles it sells to help customers understand more about the wine they’re drinking. And for those who don’t read every issue of Food & Wine, it includes those helpful food pairing suggestions. Here’s an example of what you get when you scan a bottle.

We’re big on BYOBs here in the Philadelphia metro area, where Moore Brothers does some of its business, which means picking out your own wine for a dinner out is fairly common. So the ability to scan my wine bottle at the table with my iPhone’s camera and get a tailored list of suggestions from the wine guys who sold it to me is a lot easier than opening mobile Safari and doing Google research. I can see this being helpful in other contexts outside restaurants too: It could also be a quicker way to decide on dinner ingredients when you’re out grocery shopping.

Moore Brothers Wine Company isn’t the first to pioneer the idea of a scannable code on a wine bottle. It’s starting to become a trendy thing in their industry now. But Moore Brothers is looking at this use of the technology for specific reasons: it’s a regional company, it imports small-production European wines to a market that is dominated by state-run wine stores that carry a limited variety of brands and a lot of Chardonnay, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. Moore Brothers are trying to sell Nebbiolo, Sangiovese and Gamay, which can be a little more mysterious to shoppers.

Here’s what David Moore, who’s a co-founder and the company’s CTO, said about his business in an e-mail to me:

This presents a lot of challenges in marketing (nothing says “merlot” on it), so over the years we’ve built a lot of systems to provide contextual information about the wines and regions to our customers. This current project helps make it easier for our customers, even when they’re not in the store.

Using tech to help their customers is a great idea. But if the company’s experience is like the broader industry deploying QR codes, it’s going to be a challenge. While QR codes are popular in places like Japan, they haven’t caught on in the U.S. yet. The ability to scan these codes is almost universal in smartphones thanks to apps and built-in scanners, but people are just not embracing them: Bloomberg Businessweek recently reported that just 5 percent of Americans scanned a QR code last summer, even though the codes are popping up in 8 percent of print ads.

The QR code “fatigue” stems partly from the lack of creativity on the part of companies and advertisers employing them — people who do scan them don’t see any real payoff from doing so. That’s why I really like that Moore Brothers are thinking about how to incorporate these codes into their product in a way that’s not purely a gimmick.

Going beyond wine

Even if QR codes on wine bottles don’t take off, it’s exciting to see a non-tech company using tech to better connect their customers to valuable information.

It made me think about how many other ways food and technology could be so much more awesome together. For instance, how cool would it be if these codes were on all food packages? What if we had codes that were linked with a semantic recipe search engine like Yummly that helps with the intent of my search, not just a keyword or food category. Even more interesting: what if I scanned a box of pasta or a lemon, which would add those food items to my digital pantry, and a recipe library like Gojee (a personal favorite) could then suggest recipes to me based on the combination of items I added?

It would mean spending a lot less time spent on inputting information about what kind of ingredients and beverages I have on hand, and on doing recipe search. I will gladly lift a glass to anyone who makes this happen.

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Visting Wales? Bring your phone to the first Wikipedia Town

Kevin C. Tofel — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:37:07 +0000

Planning a trip to Wales anytime soon? If so, put the town of Monmouth on your itinerary and be sure to bring your phone. On May 19, Monmouth officially becomes the world’s first Wikipedia Town and you’ll need your handset with you to understand why. The Next Web explains that Monmouth has spent the last six months wiring up the entire city with free Wi-Fi while also mounting up to 1,000 plaques on notable places, artifacts and fauna in town, each with a scannable QR code that opens up a relevant Wikipedia page in one of several languages.

The town-wide availability of Wi-Fi fits in well with Wikipedia because it makes the content and knowledge freely accessible; people won’t have to supply their own mobile broadband and free QR code reader apps are a dime a dozen for most handsets. Not every interesting object in Monmouth will have a large plaque, simply because some items are small. Here’s what visitors should be looking according to (surprise!)… Wikipedia:

Larger ceramic or metal plaques for places exposed to the elements for articles specific to Monmouth.
Smaller plastic, ceramic or metal plaques for labelling objects non specific to Monmouth, e.g. for use in the Flora and Fauna guide.
Labels for use inside buildings, e.g. for objects in museums.
Glass stickers in the windows of shops to give information on their professions
In addition there will be information posters, signs, notice boards and leaflets to help people contribute and stay informed.

The viewable information in Monmouthpedia, as the project is dubbed, will grow over time as local residents and others contribute more data, stories, images and such. And it doesn’t matter what language you speak in order to understand your tour of Monmouth: Wikipedia entries will appear in the native language your handset is configured for.

Monmouthpedia sounds like it has something to offer everyone, but archeologist fans ought to be especially interested: The Council for British Archaeology designated Monmouth the seventh best town for archaeology in Britain. Who’d have thought that free Wi-Fi and a cell phone would allow for an immersive archeological experience followed shortly by a pint of local ale with history of the bar?

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Startup growth and the new recruiting ecosystem

Mike Dover — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 18:28:05 +0000

The recruiting ecosystem is changing, led by professional social networks like LinkedIn and Viadeo and companies like Jobvite and BranchOut, which are building Facebook apps for hiring and career development. This report examines that new ecosystem and how the above and more companies are changing the way businesses find and retain their employees. Small- and medium-sized businesses can benefit from innovative technology that will help their recruiting efforts, and the cost for doing so is reasonable (and decreasing). The bottom line is that technology enables the recruiting process to be more streamlined, scientific and democratic. This report provides examples and recommendations for employers.

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Forget QR codes: Your touchscreen can “read” this ink

Kevin C. Tofel — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 16:42:13 +0000

Ever since the smartphone era began, companies have looked for ways to quickly get information from the offline product world onto the phone. Barcode scanning is a popular approach while QR codes and proprietary tags, such as those from Microsoft, are other less-used solutions. These all require cameras and specifically printed codes; what if we could just use what looks like a standard ink solution and the touchscreen on our phones?

That’s exactly the idea behind Printechnologic’s Touchcode; the German company has developed an electronic print product with interactivity. Printed material using Touchcode technology looks no different than a standard print product, is recyclable and can be used on a range of products, such as tickets, food items, business cards, or nearly anything that you can put ink on. A customizable electronic code embedded in the print process interacts with a phone’s capacitive screen, much like your fingers do, giving the handset a web address or file download, for example. Here’s how the company describes it:

“Touchcode is an invisible electronic code printed on paper, cardboard, film or labels. Just put the product on the display of your smartphone/tablet/multitouch device to read the data – no matter if you’d like to confirm the authenticity of your brand product or make your card game come to life. With Touchcode, you add interactivity to just about any product.”

It’s a simply elegant solution and takes advantage of the growing number of touchscreen devices in the mobile market. DisplaySearch estimates that 2011 saw 566 million touch screen shipments for mobile phones, with rapid expansion going forward. Here’s an interactive video demo showing how Touchcode works and explaining the many possibilities for the product:

I think Touchcode is ingenious because it directly bridges the physical and digital worlds with a medium that’s been used for thousands of years: Ink. The products looks no different than any printed medium today. And they gain the extra characteristic of working with a capacitive touch screen.

Imagine tapping a printed card in Starbucks to your handset for a direct download of the tune currently playing. Maybe a printed concert ticket can open up a web page with the artist’s bio or an advance listen to an upcoming but unpublished song. Or instead of manually logging your food with a barcode, the food packaging itself contains a link to the nutritional values and can log the entry for you while also providing relevant recipes.

The idea behind these interactive codes has really never been the problem in adoption. Instead, the implementations haven’t been quite as universal as they need to be. Near-field communications, or NFC, tags could help, but they require both the tag and a phone with an NFC reader. Barcodes are probably the next best thing up until now, but are an electronic-only solution; unless you’ve learned to “read” a barcode yourself, they add little value alone.

Printed materials with Touchcode technology offer two solutions, however. The printed information itself is understandable by anyone who can read while extra information or links to other data works with a touch-capable smartphone. I’d call that a win all around if Touchcode can get clients to start using its codes during the print process.

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How payment startup LevelUp is taking a page from Starbucks

Ryan Kim — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 23:19:00 +0000

When LevelUp relaunched its local deals service in October toward a more loyalty-driven model, what stood out to me was the new mobile payment system it built from scratch to support the service. The mobile wallet mimicked Starbucks’ successful payment system, which relies on a mobile app generating a QR code at checkout that can be scanned by an employee.

Turns out there’s been a fair amount of demand among a variety of merchants for just such a system, and LevelUp is starting to capitalize on that. The company, part of Boston-based SCVNGR, said it is now doing $1 million of transactions a month through its payment system, which now has 100,000 users. Users are using the payment system two to three times a week on average, the company says. Payment volumes have been doubling in the last six weeks, and merchants are climbing on board, with 1,400 signed up, including 400 in February alone. Another 600 retailers are set to come on board this month, according to LevelUp.

One million dollars is small in the grand scheme of things, and LevelUp still has more growing up to do. It’s only available in eight markets (Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle). It’s going to face a lot more competition from Google Wallet, Isis, PayPal, Visa, Square and others.

But it is showing that a start-up can make some noise in this crowded field of mobile payments, and it’s providing a lesson in how a payment system can work when it’s integrated into a deals and loyalty program.

LevelUp’s growth shows that there are going to be other viable mobile payment systems beyond things like Google Wallet and Isis, both of which rely on near field communication.

I talked to Seth Priebatsch, “chief ninja” at LevelUp, who pointed out the similarities between Starbucks’ payment system, and said that’s been the biggest driver of sales to merchants. Many businesses have wanted to embrace a simple mobile payment and loyalty system, but Starbucks wasn’t offering its solutions to other businesses. Starbucks said recently that users loaded $500 million into mobile accounts in December and conducted more than 26 million mobile transactions last year.

“Starbucks is our best sales person,” Priebatsch said. “They have closed more deals for us than we could have done ourselves.”

Priebatsch said in the more than 2,000 store locations where LevelUp is used, some merchants are seeing more transactions through LevelUp in the first 30 days than through American Express. LevelUp offers a loyalty and analytics platform that allows merchants to reward first-time and repeat customers with discounts. The LevelUp payment system has interchange fees of 2 percent, compared with rates of about 3 percent for most credit card transactions.

When a user goes to pay, the LevelUp app creates a one-time QR code that the merchant can scan with an iPhone or Android app on their phone. Or they can use a new T-Mobile terminal that houses a dedicated phone that scans LevelUp QR codes. Consumers can conduct transactions through a LevelUp app on the iPhone or Android devices or through a mobile web version or a separate payment card.

The next step for LevelUp is to open up the system to even bigger players. It released an API today that allows point-of-sale makers and software companies that service POS terminals to integrate LevelUp into existing terminals. And Priebatsch said LevelUp is working with more than 10 point of sale terminal makers and software providers and will have some announcements soon.

The integration will make LevelUp available to a modest 3-5 percent of terminals by this summer, but it gives LevelUp an opening to compete in much bigger retail chains. He said LevelUp will be able to compete across the board, against Square for smaller merchants and Google Wallet and Isis for larger merchants, without forcing them to make big hardware upgrades.

LevelUp is interesting because it started with deals and discounts and later integrated payments. Many of the emerging wallets have evolved the other way around. Either way, it’s clear that you’ve got to have more components than just an alternative to a credit card swipe. Consumers need discounts to lure them in and merchants need more ways to engage customers.

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Opportunities and challenges for mobile deals

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 07:55:17 +0000

The trend “mobile deals” combines location-aware discounts with mobile marketing campaigns and often incorporates purchases made on the phone at brick-and-mortar retailers. This report sizes up the mobile deals space with an aim to present a comprehensive view of the influential companies and technologies. Heavyweights like Google, PayPal and American Express are moving aggressively forward with new offerings, and it will be worth watching their different strategies (e.g., deploying QR codes vs. NFC technology) to see which dominates and sets the overall bar for the market.

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Defining the mobile wallet: what it is, why it matters

Ryan Kim — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:34:20 +0000

The upcoming showdown between Google Wallet and soon-to-be competitor Isis is just one of many interesting story lines that will take hold this year as companies ratchet up their mobile wallet offerings. But with all the new products from a variety of players comes a potentially confusing year as the term “mobile wallet” gets thrown around repeatedly. What exactly is the “mobile wallet”? Here are some important definitions for those looking to make a move in the space.

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