Top 5 Uses of Mobile Phones In-Store – and 3 to Watch For

During the holiday season I was shopping in Chicago and came across a gift that I thought might be good for my brother.

I wanted to ensure I was getting the best price and took out my mobile phone. I went to search on the web only to look down on my phone and see “no bars”; I was out of cellular coverage.

Knowing that I still had a few weeks to search, I decided to hold off on the purchase just then and do some more research when I had access to the Internet. Unfortunately, I never returned to that store.

In our recent shopper survey, we realized that my story wasn’t uncommon. Shoppers today indicated that their top 5 uses of mobile phones in the store included:

1. Looking up store information
2. Browsing online websites for products
3. Checking for sales, specials, or coupons
4. Looking for competitive pricing
5. Using mobile coupons.

All of these use cases have become more critical to a retailer’s success in gaining a sale. And, without providing shoppers availability to what they need at the moment of truth, retailers risk losing that sale.

Yet, as we know, the bar continues to be set higher on the way you engage with shoppers. Once one retailer offers scannable QR codes in their store, the shopper questions why they can’t get the same capability in another. Given our recent work with retailers, there are three key areas that we expect to see popping up on the expectation list of shoppers over the next few years.

Guest Wi-Fi
As we all know, cellular coverage tends to be spotty in most stores. In addition, cellular data packages are changing and the plans that once allowed “unlimited data” are going by the wayside. So, more and more retailers are realizing that to avoid the scenario I mentioned above, they have to offer (and promote!) the ability to utilize a simple, secure, free Wi-Fi service in their stores.

This not only provides a benefit to the shopper looking to gain real-time information during their purchase, but solutions like Motorola’s Guest Wi-Fi and analytics provide valuable data to the retailer about the type of searches that are being done in store and can even tell you if a customer made a transaction on their mobile phone while standing in their aisles.

This information has changed the way these retailers are thinking about monitoring popular items of interest, determining where they are placing online advertising or providing real-time offers to the shopper in the store.

Real-time, Context-aware Offers
While this isn’t entirely a new topic, it’s one that has taken a new form given advancements in technology.  How would a shopper’s behavior change if suddenly they were offered a coupon or more loyalty points for purchasing an item in the store that they’re in at the moment that they are searching on a competitor’s website?

Imagine that you are in an electronics store and on your phone, you pull up a better price on a TV at the local mass merchant. You know you want the TV. You don’t want to drive to the other store. But, you also want the cheaper price.  Wouldn’t it be in the best interest of the retailer to immediately offer you an incentive on your phone to buy at their store? 

Using solutions like Motorola’s Connected Shopper solution and analytics, that is now becoming a reality.

Mobile Personal Assistant
When shoppers need a question answered and it isn’t covered by typical online information, it’s critical that they can find an associate that gets them the answers they need. 

However, as we all know, it tends to be the moment that you need an associate that they are nowhere to be found. However, if you needed to ask a friend a question, you’d simply text, Facebook, or tweet what you needed to that individual or group of experts to help you.

Why shouldn’t the same apply when you’re in store? With the use of Guest Wi-Fi in-store combined with a mobile app on the phone of a consumer and an associate’s device, a similar interaction can occur.

However, in this case it’s even more intelligent.  If you have a question about a TV, you don’t want answers coming back from the associates in apparel or grocery. You want to be sure the answers are educated.

Pairing solutions like our Connected Shopper App with our Staff Communications and Management Solution allow a shopper to simply press a button on their phone, indicate the area of interest and have an associate immediately respond by meeting that shopper and assisting them or sending them the information they need via the phone.

While all of these options must seem daunting to a retailer simply wanting to get started, they don’t need to be.  It’s critical that a retailer leverage the foundational technology that they already have and at Motorola Solutions we are working to ensure that our retailers can integrate these new technologies quickly and easily.

Most of the required infrastructure is already running in the cloud, and retailers can integrate single functions into an existing mobile app or take advantage of a fully functioning but brand-able app that we have developed.

With our latest technology, we are helping retailers everywhere quickly level the technology playing field and start taking full advantage of shoppers’ infatuation with using technology to improve their shopping experience.

Dana Warszona is the Director of Global Solutions and Services Marketing at Motorola Solutions.