Mobile retail It’s a running gag in the mobile industry that every year since 2000 has been “The Year Of Mobile”, but there are clear signs that when it comes to retail the tiny touchscreens in our pockets are starting to make their presence felt.

Russell Buckley of Eagle Eye Solutions draws a nice distinction between two areas where retail is embracing mobile: first, by allowing full commerce through the phone (for instance, with Amazon), but secondly by supporting the experience of high street shopping (with coupons or price comparison services).

Innovation Everywhere

Look around the industry, and you can see innovation in every part of the consumer journey:

1. Groupon are the big name in mobile coupons, but Google Offers have a product in beta and smaller players like Eagle Eye Solutions (who tie directly into the EPOS infrastructure in-store) are snapping at their heels;

2. App stores are awash with price comparison tools like Idealo, and the big Internet players are active here too: Amazon caused a furore last weekend launching their Price Check app into the US App Store, drawing criticism from a US senator, and Google have a product in this category, Google Shopper;

3. Payment systems are moving beyond the Internet and into the real world. In the US, Square are letting small retailers accept credit card payments through an iPhone app coupled with a cheap dongle; PayPal are returning to their roots (they started out helping Palm Pilot owners send money to one another over infrared); and yes, Google are rolling out Wallet for in-store payments (and rolling their existing payment service, Checkout, into it in the process). VISA are also busy; but they seem to have announced a mobile-related alliance or product in most of the last 10 years, leaving their credibility a little questionable; Fulfilment has seen a revisiting of business models we presumed were dead and buried: start-up Shutl promises 90-minute delivery of goods, which Webvan and Urbanfetch failed to execute on in the late 1990s.

Can you say “disintermediation”? 15 years ago the Internet was hailed for cutting out middlemen through e-commerce. Today, mobile is letting the same businesses that pioneered on the web extend their reach onto the high street, along with some new entrants. Technology isn’t the only driver of this: the current economic climate is likely to fuel both consumer interest in getting the best deals, and retailers’ interest in maximising their own efficiency.

Traditional retailers aren’t standing still, with supermarkets in particular working hard to retain loyal customers. Sainsbury’s is offering its own price-match product, giving customers who would have saved by shopping at Asda or Tesco money-off vouchers once they’ve completed their purchase. Meanwhile Tesco are bathing their stores in free Wi-fi, the official press release for this acknowledging that price comparison is one of the key uses their customers make of the new network. Are these displays of confidence, or desperation?

And the signs are that consumers are finally engaging with mobile commerce: 4.2m UK consumers access retail sites through their mobile phones according to Camerjam, and in the US a study by Oracle/ATG showed that half of US consumers use mobiles to research and browse products: with that number split fairly evening between the sexes, and growing steadily.

The technology is there; the economic drivers in place; and both retailers and consumers are showing enthusiasm for mobile retail, at last. The high street might be taking its first steps on a path already trodden by the music and print publishing industries…

by Tom Hume