Amazon and Sears were quick to capitalize on the potential of m-commerce with Sears launching its mobile optimized site sears2go.com and Amazon launching its ‘TextBuyIt’ service in April 2008. Amazon’s latest innovation, ‘Amazon Remembers’ allows iPhone users to take a picture of a product, the Amazon system will then scan the millions of items in its inventory for similar matches. If a visual match is made, Amazon will send you a text message with product details and a link to purchase the item.
Walmart also got into the mobile action with its campaign to alert shoppers of new sales and specials via text messages during the holiday sales period.
Zappos is using social media to drive sale and build customer relationships through a microblogging service called Twitter. Twitter has been a hot topic of late as it’s seen significant growth in web traffic and usage over the past several months. Over 400 Zappos employees are using the service to communicate with users while company CEO Tony Hsieh has over 28,000 twitter followers. Here’s the full list of all of Zappos employees that tweet. Quantifying the effect of social media on creating positive PR and customer loyalty has been difficult but there are several companies offering services to track these seemingly intangible and immeasurable social patterns.
An e-commerce study conducted by the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG), revealed that:
42% of online retailers surveyed allowed their products to be viewed on a mobile device
Only 15% supported complete shopping transactions through a mobile device
10% used SMS to answer customer queries
Just 6% had web pages specifically designed for mobile viewing
m-Commerce has the potential to become a cash cow for online retailers looking to improve and expand their multi-channel retailing strategy. Those that get in early and execute a proper mobile strategy can potentially realize significant profits in this growing channel. To view the full report and other key findings visit Cisco.
