Mobile Brings “No Boundaries” Shopping Power to Merchants, Too

The data is pretty clear, mobile is the best vehicle for providing a “no boundaries” shopping environment to customers. Reporting from Shopatron client sites shows traffic from mobile devices nearly doubled in 2011, going from 6.5% of visits at the beginning of the year to 12.2% by mid December.

And, at the height of this holiday season’s shopping frenzy—Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday—mobile visits to Shopatron stores accounted for close to 15% of total traffic and 8.5% of total online revenue. This growth mirrors data cited by Internet Retailer that reported IBM estimated mobile traffic over the same period accounted for 12.4% of all traffic. Internet Retailer also reported that PayPal’s mobile payments increased 514% over Cyber Monday 2010.

At this point, we probably can’t even imagine the extent to which mobile will continue to affect our daily lives. Already, it makes retail information more accessible than ever before. But, so far, the power is in the hands of the people—they can search, scan and shop at their leisure.

The next step will likely shift some of that power into the hands of merchants. For that reason, geo-targeted or location-based marketing could be the next big growth opportunity for mobile. With location-based marketing, merchants can reach shoppers more proactively. Rather than waiting for shoppers to seek them out, the merchants can do the seeking for customers who are nearby.

A great example of this was described in Mobile Commerce Daily’s article about Best Buy’s recent geo-targeting campaign through Pandora. 

This makes sense, doesn’t it? Who is more likely to convert into a customer—someone walking around the mall or a person sitting at home on the couch or in front of the computer? I vote for the mall rat…

It will be interesting to see what types of businesses find the most success with this approach. Will it be the coffee shop pinging passers by for a $2 cup of coffee? Or, will it be compelling enough to convince people walking past the targeted location to stop and buy a new laptop, flat screen TV or refrigerator?

Either way, it’s another aspect of the “no boundaries” trend in retail commerce we discussed in our recent whitepaper and webinar, “10 Ways ‘Online’ Will Change Life for Brands and Retailers in 2012.”

Keep your eye on mobile. It’s a moving target, after all, and it’s starting to move faster!