Tag: Mobile Commerce

CVS Plans To Roll Out Curbside Pickup Service

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
On Tuesday, CVS launched a new curbside pickup service called “CVS Express,” allowing customers to order items using CVS’s mobile app and get their orders delivered to their cars when they drive up to the store. This service is currently available at 350 CVS locations in select cities, but the company says it is planning to roll out curbside pickups to its 9,600 retail locations across the country soon. CVS also announced it is investing in Palo Alto-based shopping startup Curbside, whose technology is powering the new experience.

What Retailers Need To Do
With this new pickup service, CVS is making a strong push toward mobile ordering, offering customers a frictionless shopping experience and allowing them to skip checkout lines and receive their orders within hours. As same-day delivery services continue to gain popularity, retailers need to cater to increasing consumer demand for convenience and instant gratification and make an effort to bridge the retail experience across online and offline channels.

For more information on how retailers can modernize their user experiences to better engage with shoppers, check out the Boundless Retail section in our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: TechCrunch

Target’s Discount App Cartwheel Adds Support For Digital Coupons

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Target is expanding its branded discount shopping app Cartwheel to help customers save even more at checkout. Through a partnership with Quotient, a third-party provider of digital coupons from manufacturers, Target shoppers can now enjoy steeper discounts on a wider range of products. Moreover, the app is able to receive communication from the beacons that Target is installing in their stores, allowing the retailer to serve customers with contextually relevant information and brand messages.

What Retailers Need To Do
Adding support for digital coupons should attract more budget-conscious shoppers to Cartwheel, which Target says is already “used by millions.” Cartwheel not only provides Target with a valuable sales channel to reach mobile shoppers, it also lays a solid foundation for Target’s beacon initiative. More retailers should consider developing similar mobile commerce channels to engage today’s connected shoppers.

For more information on how brands can modernize their user experiences to better engage with shoppers, check out the Boundless Retail section in our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: TechCrunch

Ecommerce App Spring Integrates With Popular Mobile Game

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Mobile shopping app Spring has struck a partnership to help it sell fashion items in an unusual place – Kim Kardashian’s popular mobile game. Starting Monday, users can get designer clothes sold by Spring to dress up their avatars from an in-app virtual boutique, which also features link-outs to nudge users to download the Spring app and buy the actual items for themselves. Currently, the in-app store features products from 12 fashion brands, including Derek Lam, Opening Ceremony, Jennifer Fisher, Modern Citizen, and Clare Vivier.

What Brands Need To Do
This integration allows the game’s tens of millions of users to view and purchase items on Spring, which should add considerable exposure for Spring’s ecommerce platform. For retailers and fashion brands, using a popular game app as a trojan horse to get your products on consumer’s mobile screen can be a good strategy for increasing brand awareness and capturing mobile shoppers. Brands looking to conquer the mobile commerce space should try exploring similar partnerships if they can find a compatible app to partner with.

 

Source: Digiday

Facebook Ramps Up Mobile Commerce With New Shopping Feed

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Following its partnership with Shopify to add “Shop” sections to companies’ Pages last month, Facebook continues to dive deeper into mobile commerce with the debut of a new shopping feed and a wide roll-out of its new “Canvas” ad format. Now Facebook users can find a “Shopping” tab in their feed menu, which provides a feed of various products that businesses choose to highlight and is customized to match individual user’s connections, Likes, and interests. Moreover, Facebook is also rolling out its immersive full-page ad format, now called “Canvas,” to more businesses to showcase different products in a fast-loading, full-screen experience in the news feed on mobile.

What Brands Need To Do
According to a recent study, Facebook ranks as the No.1 app that consumers spend time in, taking up 13% of all time spent on mobile. Therefore, it is important for retailers to reach customers where they already are and start utilizing these mobile commerce features to build a presence on Facebook. Besides, Facebook also provides some data-driven personalization options, which retail and CPG brands would be wise to make use of.

 

Source: TechCrunch
Header image credit: Promotional Image from Facebook

Mobile Sales Dominated Black Friday Sales, According To PayPal And Walmart

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: TechCrunch

Yesterday we covered the stellar performance of online sales this past Black Friday weekend, and now various sources are reporting the staggering growth of mobile shopping as well.

Walmart’s online store reported that mobile traffic constituted 70% of its pageviews over the Thanksgiving weekend. Its designated mobile app also reported over 4 times up in usage from the same time last year.

Similarly, PayPal also saw a 43% increase in PayPal mobile shoppers on Thanksgiving, and a 51% increase on Black Friday. Other firms saw mobile accounting for somewhere between 27-30% of sales. So if you haven’t paid much attention to mobile commerce, you might want to start now.