When you pick up your iPad, or cell this AM, you can be sure that another bricks ‘n mortar big box retailer took new directions before you awoke to re-engage customers and join the channel of chatter on what’s new. Most trends in the multi-channel aisle for retail marketing fall into Red e App’s sweet spot as you take a magnifying glass to the details.
In the US, the number of people who shop online keeps increasing, with 38 percent buying at least once per month, according to a 2011 J.P. Morgan Bank report. And the percentage of people who don’t shop online declined to 12 percent in 2010 from 20 percent in 2007. Higher income consumers shop online the most often, with 34 percent of those making $100,000 or more shopping online at least three times per month.
The U.S. Online Retail Forecast, 2011 to 2016, by Forrester, indicates that smartphones and tablets are helping boost ecommerce sales. According to the report, smartphones and tablets leads consumers to spend more time online and spend more money making purchases.
In the retail marketing world there are six smartphone initiatives to consider, according to CrossCap’s VP of Business Development, Harris Loeser:
- m.website (most large retailers have a mobile website)
- Mobile apps (big opportunities and a marketing challenge)
- Localization (important to merchandising)
- Personalization (id & history)
- Instore cloud (control & market on instore wireless access)
- Instore interactive (eg: QRC codes, etc)
Loeser posts at Retail Marketing Management @ LinkedIn and Google Groups, and his points are well taken.. Taken as one sandwich, you could say that Red e App delivers the meat that makes the swallow worth it. In mobile application development, there have been no free lunches. You often pay for the strategy…..then you pay for the development…and then the approach to open all of it into an integrated multi-channel.
Red e App positions retailers to be out on an equal playing field in commerce within a few hours, instead of months, connecting to other activities on the web. Why aren’t more companies experimenting with Red e App as a mobile platform? The word has just begun to spread, through AMIBA on the national note, and LIBA in Louisville.
Retail engagement is a way of life. There’s no stopping Red e App.
Dawn Yankeelov
President of Aspectx, on behalf of Red e App
