Mobile Commerce

We've all felt that twinge of uncertainty when making a purchase online. It's cheaper, but we worry that by buying sight unseen, we won't receive exactly what we anticipated. That's why more shoppers, especially during the holiday season, are "showrooming." Showroomers experiment with products in-store then buy them online later for less money. The trend is hitting big retailers like Best Buy and Wal-Mart, as consumers use the brick-and-mortar stores to test-drive devices like smartphones and e-readers before buying from retailers like Amazon.com, where products are cheaper on average.

Wal-Mart plans to launch Print Plus, a mobile app that brings its print ads to life, an executive of the chain said during an educational session on day two of the Shopper Marketing Summit. The app, to be launched this year, allows shoppers to view content such as recipes and product information when they scan a Wal-Mart ad with their smartphones.

Women's apparel retailer Cache launched a mobile app last December due to increased traffic to the brand's mobile website. Working with mobile and multichannel platform provider Usablenet, Cache has designed an app that engages its customers with relevant content and offers, while at the same time integrates multiple marketing channels.

The concept of a mobile wallet isn't new. After all, Google Wallet has been live for a year-and-a-half and prior to that there have been a number of startup payment systems in the marketplace. What's changed in the marketplace is that many tech industry experts and tastemakers are proclaiming 2013 the year of the mobile wallet. Here are the reasons why:

Mobile retail sales grew at an exponential rate in 2012, and the channel shows no signs of slowing down this year. In fact, mobile transactions are expected to top $1 trillion worldwide by 2017. If anything, mobile commerce is poised to become even more firmly entrenched in the marketplace as retailers gear up to provide consumers with more enhanced mobile shopping experiences.

Record election-year spending proved a boon to virtually all media last year, including mobile. Buoyed by campaign ad dollars, government services was the fastest-growing ad category on the Millennial Media mobile ad network, up 860%. The company does not provide actual dollars, so it's difficult to assess how much was spent per category, according to a new report. But government services represented only 2% of campaigns overall on the network.

Shoppers have become increasingly comfortable using the smartphone or tablet to browse retailer offerings, look for discounts and compare products-whether on the go or on the couch. For moms especially, who tend to lead shopping and mobile trends, the use of these smart devices may have reached the tipping point: Mobile has become more than a nice accessory to augment the shopping process; it has become an essential stop in the path to purchase.

Mobile will generate one-quarter of retail sales by 2014, and the apps from which consumers make purchases will generate multiterabytes of real-time data. But getting apps to work well remains a major challenge. Android may take the majority of market share, but apps built on the Google OS crash more often compared with Apple — 33 percent vs. 23 percent, respectively, according to the Xtreme Labs Retail Apps Report released Monday, which provides insight into how the top 100 U.S. retailers fare in the mobile space. 

Focusing on the omnichannel customer, mobile apps vs. mobile sites, and the real return on investment of social media were just a few of the many topics discussed at eTail West, which took place in Palm Desert, Calif. this week. Here's a look at a few key takeaways — and fun perspectives — via tweets sent during the conference:

A post-holiday e-commerce report released Friday by technology company Monetate found that on Christmas Day 2012, 16 percent of all e-commerce traffic came from smartphones and 15.6 percent came from tablets, a marked upswing from a year earlier when just 6.4 percent came from smartphones and 8 percent from tablets.