Optism™

Social Media’s influence across the ecommerce landscape has been profound. With so many choices and conflicting information about which products to choose, consumers are increasingly relying on their social networks both off-line and online to query their community about the right product and service choices. I’ve done it myself and asked my Facebook crew for recommendations on which gaming system to get for my kids. Why did I do it? Because it’s real-time feedback and it makes my life easier. In addition to listening, consumers are also broadcasting their recommended products out to their community. No matter whether they are listening or broadcasting, consumers have become more sophisticated and more careful about their shopping choices — using all available options.

Mobile has accelerated this trend by allowing retailers and other companies to easily reward this word-of-mouth behavior with non-currency rewards. One of the experts on this new trend is Liz Crawford who was recently interviewed by Mike Lewis of Business2Community in an article entitled, The Shopper Economy: 5 Questions with Liz Crawford. Crawford identifies a new dynamic where a shopper can actually earn value in exchange for one of four behaviors: paying attention (e.g. watching a video), participating (e.g. demoing a product), advocating (e.g. writing a review on Yelp), or committing (e.g. participating in brand-sponsored charity event). The rewards can be loyalty points, free mobile minutes, discounts, social recognition or free products like a phone.

Crawford says, “I thought it was fascinating that digital technology, especially mobile technology, was enabling new kinds of transactions between buyers and sellers.  In addition to shoppers purchasing brands, brands were purchasing shopper behavior. I believe this is a relatively new phenomenon.”

Crawford has a new book, The Shopper Economy: The New Way to Achieve Marketplace Success by Turning Behavior into Currency. In the book, Crawford provides detailed examples of Brands, like American Express, that understand consumers are evaluating many products. They know that if they can incentify people towards evaluating their products, they will have a better chance of selling it. Some of the companies helping brands provide behavioral currency include Foursquare, shopkick, SCVNGR and Checkpoint. shopkick gives you kickbucks just for entering the store without buying anything and then you can redeem these kickbucks for gifts like iTunes gift cards, movie tickets, store gift cards and even make donations to charities.

This is a fast-moving trend that will only grow as consumers increase their use of mobile. Crawford says, “Shoppers will become increasingly sophisticated in understanding the worth of their labor.  This means that they will evaluate transactions with brands and retailers with a sharper eye to their own advantage.” Marketers pay special attention to Crawford’s words as the consumer is smarter and has more power than ever before. On the opposite side of the equation, it makes you wonder if people will behave a certain way in order to get rewards thus creating artificial brand advocates.

What do you think about rewarding shopping behaviors? Is it something that you will do or have done? Let us know by leaving a comment or participating in our Facebook Poll. If you could earn something in exchange for sharing your shopping behaviors such as “paying attention” or “promoting” a brand’s product/service, which option would you be most likely to choose?

Welcome to Optism’s first blog acting as curator for the Carnival of the Mobilists. In our dynamic industry, we’ve found that keeping abreast of what ecosystem members are saying is critical to staying on top. That’s why we published our Permission Marketing in the News blogs for almost two years! Now, we’re happy and honored to be a Carnival of the Mobilists host — and we’ve got a great collection of articles to suggest to you this week.

Our favorite comes from mobileweb company’s Martin Wilson. Martin shared his thoughts on responsive web design and why he believes it is falling far short of what people need. According to Martin, responsive web design is “a lazy way to approach mobile.” It focuses on delivering content that suits the size, platform and orientation of the device in use, rather than the needs of the mobile user. Because the content is PC oriented, it includes information that is not relevant in a mobile context and bulky graphics that bog down the mobile experience. Worse still, the information the user is most likely to be interested in, such as store locations, is often buried under pages of this unwanted stuff. Mobile, says Martin, can’t be an afterthought. It’s time for businesses to think about “mobile leading their online strategy.”

Other interesting posts from this week: Read the rest of this entry »

Note: This blog post was originally published on Mobile Payments Today.

You may have read it: Best Buy’s Q4 results were below the expectations and the chain is closing 50 big box retail stores.  Margins are eroding as the retailer is being squeezed by both online retailers such as Amazon and discount stores like Walmart.

But definitely one of the most interesting side comments was that consumers increasingly use Best Buy stores as showrooms where they can simply view and test the merchandise before purchasing online, often from a lower-priced retailer such as Amazon. What a nightmare: investing in expensive real estate to help your competitors sell better.

With my sympathy for Best Buy’s situation — I am still a fervent shopper when I am travelling in the U.S. — but I look at this evolution as perfect proof that the consumer is completely breaking the boundaries of on- and off-line trade, and that retailers have not yet learned how to take full  advantage  of it.

Where we as professionals in commerce-land are still classifying the industry in 'eCommerce,' 'mCommerce,' or bizarre terms such as 'card present payments' and 'card not present payments,' the consumer behavior is already far ahead. The stove pipes of e-, m- and off-line retail do not exist anymore and retailers who do not adapt to this new reality will struggle to acquire, or maintain customer relationships.

According to a survey from Google/Ipsos in April  2011, 79 percent of smartphone users in the U.S. leveraged their device for help with shopping, of which 70 percent used it instore. U.S. consumers were using their smartphones for things like searching shop locations, browsing product reviews, consulting price comparisons, and seeking discount coupons.

So the real winner is the one who best leverages the anytime, everywhere connected smartphone to guide the consumer across their decision making process occurring at different times and locations:

• mobile search advertising to capture consumers with clear buying interest
• shop locators
• contextual promotions leveraging geo-marketing to drive consumers to the store
• in-store alerts for suggestive cross-selling of products
• post shopping loyalty programs

And this all without being too disruptive and intrusive, as consumers want to stay in control, and only want to have highly relevant notifications or alerts.

So I'm curious how Stephen Gillett, who recently joined Best Buy to lead their mobile strategy (and the former CIO of Starbucks) will drive the mobile consumer to the stores for real purchases.