Is your business optimizing for mobile media?
by July 16th, 2008 Patrick Greer
In case you haven’t noticed we have entered a “new age” of consumer computing is the last couple of years. One of the mobile devices getting the most press coverage is Apple’s iPhone. Yes, a majority of business users still use Blackberry’s but let’s focus on the consumer and I am really going to stress the word consumer as a potential buyer and not the other meaning of a “non business” user.
Last week I stopped by our local Barnes and Noble in Greenville,SC to look for a reference book that would help me get a better grasp of a piece of software I recently bought, Final Cut Express. I found the book I was looking for, Final Cut Express 4 - Movie Making for Everyone by Diane Weynand. However while in the store I did something Barnes and Noble would hate. I pulled out my iPhone, brought up Amazon.com and typed in the book’s ISBN’s number and discovered I could get the book for $15 dollars cheaper than if I had bought it that day at Barnes and Noble. Now to be fair if I had needed the book that day I would have bought it at Barnes and Noble because $15 was not going to effect my budget on the project if it had needed to be done quicker but Barnes and Noble did lose a sale.
Are you aware that many of your potential customers are carrying around devices such as this and they don’t even have to use your wi-fi (Barnes and Noble does offer wi-fi for a price but I accessed this information over the cellular network just fine.)
Do you have a ‘brick and mortar” store, are you doing everything you can to accommodate comparison shoppers? Are your customers and potential clients restricted to sitting in from of a computer or reading a brochure to learn about your business or are you giving them an option to listen to your marketing message via a podcast they can take with them? Are you prepared to match sale prices? If you do are you advertising it? If you can’t match the offers at online places like Amazon are you prepared to explain the benefits of ordering from you? I don’t care if you are a fan of Apple and the iPhone or not it will have an impact on your business.
July 17th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Patrick,
The mobility of internet puts the brick and mortar business person in the position to search for what services do thay have that online services do not. As hard as it is to operate a small business, this probably makes retailers want to scream.
When I think of what keeps me coming back to purchase items, no matter what the price; it boils down to relationship. It matters greatly how I “feel” when I shop in certain stores.
Personal service and knowing my name when I do business with you will have me coming back. Price matters. Personal service that honors me, greets me with hospitality and personally guarantees services and products wins over cost alone.
July 17th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Thanks for your observation Kay. Of course this issue has been around before mobile device with Internet access were around. 5 year ago I may have called home and asked my wife to check something online on our big desktop computer and even 50 years ago someone could have waited and gone home or called on a pay phone to see what a price may have been in a mail order catalog. It’s just easier and less cumbersome to get to the information these days (depending on how tech savvy one is.
We recently made what seemed to have been a suspect financial decision by shopping a a slightly more upscale grocery store (Publix) for most of our grocery purchases than going to some of the bargain basement outlets (and I use the term outlets literally). Yes, Publix has some higher priced items but their service is spectacular and if you know how to shop and know the methods of the stores you can either save just as much money or rest assured you are getting a higher quality product.
Someone is always going to have you beat with a technology edge from time to time. One aspect of optimizing for mobile media I may have neglected is, even if you company is selling goods and services via mobile devices how can you combine that with great personalized customer service?