By Nikki Baird, Managing Partner
9/29/2009
In the last two weeks, I have been immersed in online and cross-channel, up to the eyeballs between IBM's WebSphere Commerce Leadership Summit and Shop.org. One of the more interesting discussions that has emerged as a common theme across the weeks has been the question of app vs. WAP. In other words, is it better to invest in a mobile application (for iPhone, Blackberry, or Android app stores), or is it better to invest in a mobile-optimized WAP site?
To a large degree, it depends on who your customers are and how much they use the web components of their phones. I recently had the interesting experience of showing my mother how to check in online at Southwest via her quite capable Blackberry phone - this from a fairly tech-savvy Boomer who yet has never sent a text in her life (or accessed the mobile web, apparently). But beyond that driver, how does a retailer with limited resources decide how to allocate them in the mobile realm?
One answer came from Shop.org speaker Gary Wohlfeill, Creative Director at Moosejaw, a very mobile-innovative outdoor apparel retailer in the Midwest. Gary shared Moosejaw's timeline in mobile, which started with SMS campaigns in 2002. In 2006, the company launched a WAP site, which listed every SKU that was also available online. The WAP site still exists today - moosejaw.mobi - but the company learned several lessons from the experience: one, that payment options which are recognizable are comforting to users. From Moosejaw's perspective, that meant supporting PayPal Mobile. The side benefit turned out to be easy access to an alternative payment at the register, by using PayPal Mobile in the store. However, for a company that prides itself on its "Moosejaw Madness" culture, the WAP site was not media rich, and so did not translate the madness well onto the mobile site. Also, the site was too siloed - there were few touchpoints into other channels, other than data sharing around SKU's.
This year, the company launched an iPhone app, which is definitely more media rich than the WAP site. The iPhone capabilities enabled a truly "merchandised" home page, product page features, every customer review, and a much better Madness section. However, one thing this the app does not feature is checkout. The company felt that improving the experience via mobile was so important that it was worth launching early and without checkout, rather than to wait for that checkout feature - today, users can click to call to complete a mobile order via the app.
Despite the lack of checkout, the app has yielded some significant activity. The biggest use? In-store lookup of customer reviews. Longer term, the company is looking to add checkout, with a strong push towards persistent checkout - where an item stashed in the cart on the mobile phone can be accessed online or in the store (or any other combination of these channels). The company is also looking to feature downloadable catalog apps.
I expect we'll also see more Madness. The company’s lunchmeat throw down app (where users play rock-paper-scissors, only using cuts of deli meat, to earn Madness points) is the current bar to beat, but I have no doubt that someone at Moosejaw is getting ready to do exactly that. Yes, there is an app for that.
One more point: given that customer reviews for in-store products is the biggest use of the mobile app today, is Moosejaw doing anything in-store to help make those reviews easier to access? Not yet - but the idea has been tossed around. The issue is with finding something in-store that is cost effective - it's simply not worth it to re-label every item with 2-D barcodes, for example. Manufacturers, take note.
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