Friday, August 20, 2010

In-store Payments with Your Mobile Phone - A Game Changer

No need for credit cards or cash, just your phone.  Bank of America will begin testing with Visa, allowing the use of smartphones to make in-store payments.  The program will start in September according to a report from Reuters, and run through the end of the year in the New York area.


Customers wave their phones near the point-of-sale devices and their bank account data is collected and purchases completed. 


According to the story on Reuters, "Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile USA and Discover Financial Services are working on forming a joint venture aiimed at offering payments through mobile services, people familiar with the matter told Reuters."


It will be interesting to see how this changes the playing field for companies like Square, as reported in the LA Times, and competitor VeriFone, which requires an attachment on a retailer's"iPhone device to accept payments from credit cards. 


Screenshot of VeriFone's App.
This opens up a whole new world for mobile in retail.  As device manufacturers start to embed Near Field Communication (NFC) devices in phones that allow this to take place, imagine the possibilities of integrating this with mobile applications providing in-store shopping assistance.


It's a utility function that's been lacking from many of the coupon and offer apps on the market today.  


By allowing a shopper's transaction to be "complete" at point-of-sale will explode the use of mobile shopping assistance within retail.  The timing is ripe for a whole new shopping environment---aisle411 is excited to be launching an exciting digital shopper application at the early stages of the explosive growth expected in the mobile in retail environment.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Shopkick Nails One Piece of the Puzzle, but "Holy Grail" is Yet to Come!

Shopkick launched thier flagship app on Apple's App store yesterday, which allows you to check in at retailers and get rewards.  If you're running the application in Shopkick's handful of early retail partners, you'll get pinged with points and special discounts based on how you move around the store.

The Shopkick interface is beautiful. Smooth graphics and cool sound effects add to the attractiveness of the application.  Also impressive is the integration of social gaming and Facebook connect. This is a concept embraced by aisle411 and you'll see our version coming this fall across the country.

The "Holy-Grail" of mobile in retail, we think is yet to come.  The "Holy-Grail" of mobile in retail is the convergence of retail utility, search based customer service tools with relevant offers connected to those actions.  Driving the engine is the location based social gaming and loyalty component.

By combining utility, search based customer service, social gaming and loyalty, you create a service that:

1.) Addresses real, re-occurring consumer pain points
2.) Integrates mobile into the physical retail space through location based information
3.) Ties relevant customer-centric promotional offers to a user's wants and immediate needs
4.) Makes it fun through social gaming and sharing
5.) Generates valuable shopper insights that make for a better user experience over time
6.) Allows a brand to truly connect with a consumer in the store at the moment of truth

aisle411 encapsulates these elements in one comprehensive solution, from the pre-planning shopping stage (at home on the computer) and seamlessly integrates it into the store (with the power of location based mobile solutions).  This fall, the "Holy-Grail" of mobile in retail launches with aisle411!

Friday, August 6, 2010

College Kids, Badges and Cash

Crowd sourcing will change our world dramatically in the next five years.  Using crowds of people to source mass amounts of data is becoming more efficient by the day.  Social networks like Facebook and the mobility of people and technology (mobile phones) make connecting physical things/places to a digital database far easier than any of us could have imagined five years ago. 


Giving people a reason to crowd source is the biggest challenge to date. An interesting start-up, Campus Live is using a mix of badges, prizes and cash to source info accross the country from over 400 college reps, and it seems to be working.  Great article on them here on the Kelsey Group blog.

Finding what you're after takes a unique spin in all venues; colleges, amusement parks, conventions, stores, etc.  Connecting social sourcing (crowd sourcing) at the point of interest, whether it's colleges or retail stores is an exciting place to be.  At aisle411, we're working on changing the retail world forever, connecting to people at that point of interest.  Think about millions of people inside retail locations every day, all with phones, all on a mission to find what they're after...connecting with them is where we step in.  How could this change retail? Let us know what you think.



Thursday, July 29, 2010

Google Places API. Fueling Functionality to the "Check-In" App World

"Check-ins" are HOT right now with the proliferation of smartphones and consumers compelling need to explore, discover and be seen (status and competitive nature) is driving a whole new gaming phenomenon within apps. While most of these apps today are cool, interesting and addicting, there is a general lack of functionality to drive consumer need and adoption past the "early adopter" user.

Read Write Web has a good description and take on this as well:


What Google is doing is smart. They don't directly say it, but what they are doing is opening up the developer highway, and "data" highway to add functionality into these "check-in" and location based mobile and web applications and websites.

Functionality and utility has always been at the core of aisle411 and how we've developed our vertical search engine within retail stores. After layering in digital maps, we're very excited to work backwards into connecting a "check-in" and gaming component that will drive that addictive behavior that's become so popular with apps like foursquare or gowalla.

Most likely, our engineers at aisle411 will soon take a deep dive into the Google Places API to connect the dots between the "check-in" and functionality of our digital solution.



Friday, July 31, 2009

BRANDWEEK Article Hovers Around Aisle411

There's a relevant article on BRANDWEEK'S website written July 30, 2009 entitled, Brands Missing In-Store Marketing Opportunities. Brandweek sites some outstanding research conducted by Nikki Baird, Managing Partner at RSR Research (Retail Systems Research).

The article indicates a key role to generating incremental sales lies in customer-facing technologies, but sites that the technologies are typically expensive to fund. Aisle411 is sure to shock the industry with its relevant, personal connection to the customer and our ability to actually service the consumer while leveraging the key to in-store marketing...the mobile phone-something that over 88% of customers carry with them into the store.

Get ready, we're almost there!

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Former Home Depot CMO Wants Aisle411...

John Ross (left), the former Home Depot CMO knows retailers need Aisle411. He knows it's on the way, he just doesn't know we exist yet. HE WILL SOON!

From Advertising Age By Michael Bush Published: July 08, 2009 :
Interpublic Group of Cos.' Mediabrands has brought on former Home Depot CMO John Ross to serve as president of its Emerging Media Lab. The move, according to Mediabrands President-CEO Nick Brien, is "phase one" of the unit's new Retail 3.0 solution, something it started devising a year-and-a-half ago. ...

The interview goes on to quote this comment:

Ad Age: How are these emerging technologies and programs you are pushing affecting things on the local level?
Mr. Ross: It's ironic that retailers are graced with these new mediums, whether it's e-commerce, traditional banner or search advertising or emerging social-media connections, which are global by nature. Yet the businesses are intensely local, whether they are driven by local assortments, demographic changes or completely different shopping behaviors. And figuring out how to match up an amazingly global marketplace with intensely local needs is something that media companies can help retailers and manufacturers alike to do.
The ability to harness these new technologies, whether it's GPS location within the store or the ability to use their existing logistics systems in inventory infrastructures to help customers find the product using their technology-enabled phones, or whether it's much simpler things, like harnessing existing conversations that are going on, will help retailers on the local level provide an easier shopping experience.

Ad Age: How do you get retailers, who have generally been pretty slow to adopt a lot of this emerging media, to get on board with you?
Mr. Ross: They have no choice. The technology is coming, and it's in their stores today. Consumers walk in with the technology in their pockets. So when we are talking about emerging media that's very much in the mobile space and in their automobile when they drive up to the store. There's no place for retailers to hide, because the consumer is leading that charge.


Check out the full article from Advertising Age at: http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=137795

The future of in-store marketing is now.