Really?
After speaking with dozens of online retailers this week, I couldn’t turn off my brain. Mobile…mobile…mobile… It reminded me of the early buzz around social media, which plenty of people jumped into early with misguided notions. So I’m stuck on the idea of mobile e-commerce, and whether or not it’s really viable. If it is, what will it look like?
First, just because I have an iPhone with great web surfing, always on data access, and access to bajillions of custom apps doesn’t necessarily mean that everything I was doing on my pc before is going to shift to my phone. Email, yes. Twitter, blogging, facebook - yes. Google searches, yes. Shopping?
I buy apps and songs through my mobile. Because I have an iTunes account and know that the environment is safe. When I’m at Best Buy, I always keep them honest by checking my phone. But not once have I decided by price checking against my local big-box retailer that the better deal online needed to be bought right there on the spot via my phone. Don’t want to whip out my credit card in public, don’t want to fat finger my cc# 3 times, don’t want to be a fraud victim because it wasn’t convenient to click on the Thawte or McAfee logo at the bottom of the page to verify it’s authenticity.
In fact, when I’m sitting at the Dentists office for 30 minutes or at the airport waiting for a connection, I’m not thinking I need to go shop Amazon and buy a new Canon lens or hit up J.Crew for a new cardigan in grey because I don’t have one and it occurred to me suddenly that I had to have it.
I don’t go to Barnes and Noble and decide to subscribe to GQ for $12 rather than buy the latest issue for $4. I don’t buy toilet tissue from Wal-mart because it’s cheaper online than at the Target I’m standing in.
In fact, when I run through my last 50 purchases I can’t think of a single one I might have been compelled to buy online. So why, if I can’t make a case does it seem the whole retailing industry is buzzing about the need to go mobile?
One theory is because social is proving to be a solid marketing tool (except Facebook) and online retailing has proven that those late to the party pay for it, so they’ve become trained to be obsessed with being early adopters.
Another theory is that they are just blinded by the cool technology and the idea of monetizing all those consumers.
In the end though, while I love gadgets and mobile technology, I’m having a really hard time seeing the need for taking e-commerce mobile in the traditional sense.
I think Starbucks’ iPhone app is a good example of how to make it work. Pre-ordering by app to avoid lines is something I can get behind.