Not counting content for the mobile phone, like ringtones, mobile commerce is still in its infancy in the United States. From fast food (Papa John’s) to fashion (Net-a-Porter), marketing and sales executives with pioneering attitudes have been experimenting with mobile commerce. Many are still trying to figure out what does and does not work in connecting with consumers and their wallets via their mobile phones.
Since most US mobile users still do not have a smart phone, companies have to decide whether to offer a richer experience via an optimized mobile Web site or app, but to potentially fewer customers, or reach more customers via something almost every mobile user has, such as SMS. While at first blush it might seem best to err on the side of scale, my recent experience with an SMS-based m-commerce platform convinced me otherwise.
Here's how it went down. A few weeks ago while on vacation, I was flipping through a women’s magazine and came across an ad which contained a potentially cute pair of shoes. As there was a mobile call to action and I was nowhere near my laptop, I was intrigued. I texted the code to the short code and the process began.
However, several messages back and forth later, I did not buy the shoes. Never having shopped for anything this way or from this service or retailer before, I was not sure what to expect. Other than “standard messaging rates apply,” neither the ad nor the first message from ShopText (on behalf of the retailer) offered any expectations. The process itself was a long series of messages, which seemed to take longer than if I had just gone to my nearest Internet connection, logged on and created an account. Frustrated, I aborted somewhere along the way (again, not sure how far along as nothing was communicated regarding what to expect).
My issue was not just with the cumbersome and unclear nature of the shopping process itself. Unfortunately, shopping by text message did not meet the high bar for shopping for shoes virtually that sites like Endless and Zappos have set. The print ad offered almost no detail in the photo and accompanying text and none of the text messages offered any additional details (thus, why I earlier referred to the shoes as “potentially cute”). I had no idea what the heel height and type were, what type of pattern had been laser cut into the leather, if there was a platform in the shoe, etc. These are all extremely important details to me, as I expect they are to most women, when evaluating a shoe.
Even though I found my particular experience lacking, I have to applaud this retailer and magazine for trying to increase the engagement with their young, connected, female consumers via the ShopText platform. They recognize that there is a real opportunity in connecting with consumers via their mobile phones, an item that most consumers state they cannot and do not live without (per Synovate’s recent research that found “three quarters of the survey respondents - including 82% of Americans - never leave home without their phones, and 36% of people across the world (42% of Americans) go as far as to say they 'cannot live without' their cell phone”).
However, for m-commerce to outgrow its baby shoes, all of the parties involved need to rethink how women are accustomed and want to shop for shoes virtually. Otherwise, for this category of goods, ShopText will need to clarify the level of service offered by renaming itself “OrderText.”
- Valerie Cashour
