Oh, There's No Place Like a Phone for the Holidays

Perry Como never sounds better than during Thanksgiving weekend when his perennial favorite ushers in the holiday season. For many Americans, mobile devices have made home one of their favorite retail outlets, especially when the crowds and store traffic are at their craziest.?

Is brick and mortar dead? Absolutely not. Many shoppers like to get out of the house, enjoy the throngs and excitement, the hustle and bustle. They like the hunt, the decorations, and the sights and sounds. Physical retailers will therefore always have something that online retailers will never have: the shopping experience.

But guess what? The phone now plays a predominant role in store shopping as well.

Mobile commerce will grow exponentially during the 2013 holiday season with consumers buying at home and in store via their phone. In fact, mobility will drive e-commerce sales gains of between 13 percent and 15 percent, according to the National Retail Federation’s forecast. Today’s sales and marketing strategies, therefore, need to acknowledge the mobile device not as a “channel” but rather as gateway to multiple channels. ??

Americans essentially now use their phone as an external brain, complete with sensory that allows them to talk with the consumer products they want all the while receiving targeted marketing e-mails that already understand their buying behavior. The 2013 holiday shopping experience will introduce many more products that are integrated with data and are just a scan away from telling the consumer everything they need to know. To the consumer, the data isn’t “in” the product, it is part of the product.

Welcome to a world where almost every consumer 1) has better technology than the companies marketing to them and 2) is a power user of that technology. About 35 percent of consumers do product searches while in stores. Retail apps that enable mobile checkout are also becoming table stakes. Consumer product companies and retailers will need to work together in unprecedented ways to entice and satisfy consumers before their competition.

A strange dichotomy is also emerging. American’s have always thrived on convenience and impulse, but now impulse buys are no longer associated with risk. And although that’s an advantage often for a physical retailer, “freshness” alone will not protect these retailers given that their online competitors can deliver next day. It takes Amazon in some cases only 11 minutes from receipt of order to shipment — all without the product being touched by a human. Retailers must now cultivate additional differentiators at the time of the buying decision to compliment their advantage of “immediate gratification”.

And it’s not just related to general merchandise. IRI notes that 21 percent of Americans are “on-the-run eaters”. This $90 billion market will go increasingly to the CPG marketers and retailers who can provide on-target and timely messaging around value and convenience through the mobile device.  

Net, CPG companies and retailers that develop a comprehensive strategy around the phone as a “gateway”, not simply a channel, during the 2013 holiday season will no doubt be singing, “from Atlantic to Pacific, gee the traffic is terrific!”