We chat with Greg Ashton, Director of Worldwide Business Research’s Mobile Shopping Conference, which explores bettering mobile commerce, taking place in October. We delve into some of the ways retailers can leverage their mobile offerings to drive sales, increase engagement, and improve their customers’ user experiences.
Kevin Xu: WB Research’s Mobile Shopping Event highlights the trends in carrying out effective mobile consumer engagement. Your next event is in October. What are some of the general trends and changes you’ve seen during the last few months between your annual events?
Greg Ashton: I think we’re in the middle of a retail revolution. As we move from traditional point and click to touch and swipe, wearables and beyond, we need to keep a firm focus on providing the most relevant device experience to our customers. Last year we saw a lot of conversation around mobile feature experimentation – at this year’s show in October, we’re delving much deeper into the three challenges on everyone’s radar - attribution, location and personalization. Each day of the show is built around each theme. We’re hearing some poignant early results from teams who have established omnichannel analytics to track mobile revenue and maximize conversion rates across all their digital assets. Our speakers also have some great pilot program feedback to share around digitizing the in-store experience, and understanding the intention of the mobile shopper at each stage of their purchase path. The retail revolution is gaining momentum and our audience is beginning to see the fruits of their labors.
Why are analytics so important to merchants, and what about the mobile platform specifically makes it advantageous?
Quite simply, not all screens are created equal. Analytics are giving merchants confidence to send the right message to the right person at the right time, based on device relevancy and analysis of past purchase history. Now that platforms are working hand-in-hand to drive customers to the point of sale, analytics are pinpointing the origin of that sale and, crucially, ensuring its conversion. At this year’s show, we’re opening the floor to hear how the biggest and best retailers are sizing the mobile market and the impact it is having on their overall e-commerce business. I’m a firm believer that “you can’t manage what you can’t measure” and there is so much new technology out there that is allowing us to go granular in quantifying mobile’s indirect impact and contribution to store and desktop purchases. Overall, I think the appeal of mobile is clear- it’s with your customer pretty much 24/7. Make sure that your brand is buying up that real estate.
Smartphones enable GPS and location tracking. How can retailers leverage this data and what are the technologies taking advantage of this? More importantly, how can you incentivize it to get consumers on board with being tracked?
The fuse has been burning on iBeacon and location-based services for quite some time (e.g. through Apple Passbook), but only recently have we seen the explosion. The opportunity until now has lay in simply finding your customers, but now the technology is intelligently reaching them to provide immediate gratification. Most of our solution provider partners are working on some incredible things to provide targeted in store offers - and that’s just the tip of the iceberg, you’ll have to attend the meeting to see some of the really high-tech stuff! Its mind blowing. In terms of customer incentivization, I think were at a crossroads here too. There is always a disconnect between technology advancement and technology user acceptance. The ‘winning formula’ will be to let the merchant decide what works best for them, let the consumer decide what works best for them, and meet in the middle over time; incidentally this flexibility will be the only way for mobile payments to prevail as well!
Why is responsive, mobile-first, a good design philosophy? What are some tricks to improve usability and user experience?
It’s certainly becoming increasingly difficult to serve up an optimized experience across all the screens we have now. With the largest retailers already taking the plunge with responsive, that leaves other brands thinking “Do I need to get onboard with this immediately?” I think that the answer is yes, take the jump now. Customers don’t care who or which part of your business they are talking to, as long as the message and voice of your brand is the same, every time. Although responsive will require a complete website rewrite, with the mobile site as the driving force, this is good business from a long term perspective as more of your sales will come though the mobile channel, guaranteed. Mobile Shopping 2014 will share early pain points encountered from true responsive trailblazers, and what they did to overcome them. Overall, back-end coordination and communication between digital teams is key to creating a seamless front-end experience.
What are some of the trends you see among consumers in terms of engagement, and actual usage in mobile shopping? Certain industries are pushing out their own mobile apps. What will consumers use, versus what will they absolutely hate?
One of our conference speakers recently mentioned that with mobile, engagement does not always equal time spent. The most effective mobile campaigns engage the user in less than 10 seconds. With this in mind, I think the biggest trend to follow right now is in video. Video is being used to create some amazing branded content, it resonates with any audience and is a welcome change from the ‘flat’ content that we’re all used to. Consumers already love video - resources should increasingly be directed here to build scale. In terms of app usage, at Mobile Shopping we’re going to talk about some interesting initiatives around app partnerships. Some brands are already forming natural partnerships to build a broader customer base and share resource level of their investments. It’s definitely something to keep our eye on, as I think the real benefit is the convenience and seamless front-end experience that it can provide to consumers.
Final thought, what will be the next buzzword in mobile?
“Mobile-Born.” The next generation (born around 2005) have grown up with mobile devices. We need to anticipate this Mobile-Born audience by focusing our next innovations on them. Let’s get them onboard with our brands early!
Greg Ashton, Conference Director, Worldwide Business Research
Greg is Director of the Mobile Shopping Conference. Since 2007, Mobile Shopping has been the must-attend forum for digital executives looking to refine mobile strategy, world class networking opportunities, and in-depth research support retail industry & brand growth.