A Mobile Retail Revolution
Posted by on July 26, 2007 at 02:13 PM
Why spend your time navigating through a crowded mall while searching for your next purchase? Turn to your home computer or mobile phone to search your local shopping mall.
Local shopping has gotten easier through an innovative new way to merge the gap between online and in-store shopping. NearbyNow Inc. combines local search with mobile technology to make "shopping centers searchable on the Internet and mobile phones."
NearbyNow users are able to search an entire mall’s inventory from the convenience of their living room. Mall rats can even use SMS queries from their mobile devices to find products or sales at their favorite stores. Its SMS-based reply messages include both organic and paid results from stores within the mall.
With the internet and mobile devices becoming more prolific in our everyday lives, consumers are using them more than ever to research purchases before buying in-store. According to a study by comScore, over 60% of online searches result in in-store purchases.
Many experts believe that e-commerce is maturing, but growth will come in tying online information to offline stores. E-commerce is growing, but growing much faster is the influence it has on offline sales. Its power over consumer purchase behavior is remarkable. Local shopping will undoubtedly see greater internet influence in the near future.
NearbyNow may seem like another wannabe search engine, but I think there is real potential. The shopping comparison giants would love to get their hands on NearbyNow’s sea of searchable inventory. However, the difference is NearbyNow uses foot traffic to measure its success. The service was launched in August of 2006 and should include shopping malls in over 100 U.S. cities by the Christmas shopping season.
Comments: