Ok I apologise but I couldn’t resist that one! If you asked me what is different about this year’s holiday season then I’d say the profusion of apps. Not just apps from retailers either. Of course there are more and more of those, such as House of Fraser just announced.
It’s more than these though. I’ve noticed apps to help you shop, and apps to help you save money too. Like Smart Shopping and Price Grabber. Regular readers of this blog will know that I can see attractive prospects for mobile coupons. We saw the high profile launch of Google Mobile Coupons a couple of weeks ago.
My observation is this.
I would say that I’m not sure that everyone is jumping on the mobile bandwagon. Some retailers and merchants have yet to latch on to its potential and integrate it into their marketing strategy. Also those that do take the step don’t always make it easy and obvious where to go to download the app. Sometimes the link is “concealed” at the foot of the home page that you have to scroll down to find. A higher profile button that you can’t miss as soon as you land on the site would improve things. Especially if you’re in a hurry at this time of year.
But aside from that, one of the great plus points of apps is the location based aspect and I think that this has so much potential to improve our retail therapy experience.
The drawback of the apps route I guess though is the issue that as a mass market brand or merchant, you’re simply not going to reach the wider population because of the relatively low percentage that smart phones represent at the moment.
It’s going to get better though. Announcements like Bada bode well for wider usage of smartphones.
Tags: app, App Store, bada, coupon, House of Fraser, marketing, Mobile Commerce, Samsung
