Just in case you’ve been living in an old Kodak Fotomat booth and haven’t noticed, retail is changing, rapidly. Consumers are really starting to get this whole mobile lifestyle thing, and the idea of multitasking on the fly is becoming second nature to a growing percentage of your customers.
Okay, if you’re over 50 (ouch, that hurt, as I just reached that milestone), much of this mobile mania might still be tough to wrap your brain around. After all, there’s still those of us who are simply giddy if a call goes through on our cell phones.
That being said, there is a far greater number who’s entire world revolves around that device. It’s important for imaging retailers to grasp that it’s now almost impossible to find a mobile phone on retail shelves that doesn’t have at least a rudimentary browser.
So let’s run down the short list of what these devices now do: phone calls; up to 12MP still-image capture; HD video capture; e-mail; mobile Web; mobile commerce; buying and downloading apps; geo tagging and the list goes on.
While the still and video capture part of the equation certainly requires the attention of anyone in the imaging industry, the mobile commerce part of the mix is getting more interesting by the day.
If you’re of the school of thought that the mobile shopping market is still in its infancy and you’ve got your hands full in the brick-and-mortar world, we certainly understand. And, of course, a camera purchase is still ultimately one that, for the most part, requires a hands-on approach.
However, just be aware of a few of these recent developments:
• The smartphone’s ability to handle all of the user’s financial activities right at a cash register is getting very close. The technology for this exists in the U.S., but all the dots are not yet connected.
• Also ramping up on U.S. smartphones is the camera’s ability to conduct real-time informational reconnaissance on core product information, at the retail shelf by image and/or barcode recognition. We are told that Google Goggles is still perfecting the imaging technology for this, but it’s here now.
• The instantaneous ability to read and react to peer reviews of any given product while the user shops in-store. Sites like Foursquare, Yelp and Gowalla are the forebearers in this social mobile real-time peer influence game, but hundreds more are out there. Today’s consumer loves to share info on the products they buy—consumer electronics stuff happens to be a favorite topic.
Yes, there’s still a lot of room for improving the mobile shopping experience and we are seeing exactly that happening every passing week. But we’ll leave you with one of the more compelling quotes we’ve seen on the subject in recent months.
“The world of retail is going to change more in the next 10 years than it has in the previous 200,” says Paco Underhill, of the consumer-research and consulting firm Envirosell.
That certainly got my attention
