Mobile Customer Experience: The Next Wave of Retail

The mobile customer experience is the next edge in web-based retail sales, and its set to outpace both tablets and laptops. If you’re reading on your Smartphone, then chances are you already recognize the powerful waves the mobile experience is making in the retail industry. By 2012, it’s predicted that mobile shopping will account for $163 billion in sales worldwide. What this means is that in three years, nearly 24% of retailers will have annual sales of 15% or greater coming from their mobile channel (Source: ABI Research, 2010).

What’s even more exciting is that the rising “mobile” generation represents a highly valuable, sought-after market segment. Thirty-four percent of mobile shoppers make $100,000 or more a year (Source: comScore/Millennial Media Mobile Retail Study, 2011). Most importantly, this up-and-coming market segment believes that mobile shopping makes the retail experience better.

HomePlus, a South Korean based grocery store chain, beat the competition by enhancing its customers’ mobile experience. HomePlus built a virtual store in subways, where subway passengers in transit from work and home could simply scan a QR code, pay and have their groceries delivered to them on the same day. Because HomePlus built a framework around the needs and wants of its customers needs, the results were astounding. HomePlus’s online sales grew 130%. 10,287 customers visited the virtual storefront via their Smartphone and of those 76% became registered users. As this example shows—whether it’s finding store locations, comparing prices, finding and using coupons or scanning bar codes-- Smartphones are changing the name of the game in business strategy.