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A CLASSC GUDE
April 2014
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PAGE
3 INTRODUCTION
Retailers embrace mobile commerce with fervor
By Mickey Alam Khan
4 APPAREL AND ACCESSORIES
Apparel and accessories hit pay dirt with mobile wallets
By Kari Jensen and Rebecca Borison
6 AUTOMOTIVE
Mobile commerce takes back seat to safety for automakers
By Lauren Johnson
8 BANKS AND FINANCIAL SERVICES
Banks face growing pressure to address mobile security, payments
By Rebecca Borison
10 BOOKS, MUSIC and VIDEO
Mcommerce success hinges on context for books, music and video brands
By Lauren Johnson
12 BUSINESS TO BUSINESS
B2B brands face increasing pressure to ofer mcommerce
By Lauren Johnson
14 CATALOG
Catalogers need broader mobile approach that reaches beyond QR codes
By Chantal Tode
16 CONSUMER ELECTRONICS
Consumer electronics mcommerce to skyrocket with more
sophisticated programs
By Kari Jensen
18 DRUGS AND PHARMACIES
Personlization is signicant mcommerce opportunity for drugstores
By Chantal Tode
20 ENTERTAINMENT
Entertainment rms must rethink mcommerce strategies for continued growth
By Chantal Tode
22 FOOD AND BEVERAGE
Food and beverage merchants must diferentiate mobile experiences
to succeed
By Rebecca Borison
24 GAS STATIONS
Gas stations will rev up mobile payments to boost loyalty programs
By Chantal Tode
25 HARDWARE AND HOME IMPROVEMENT
Hardware retailers edge toward mobile as traditional medias role shrinks
By Kari Jensen
PAGE
27 HEALTH AND BEAUTY
Attribution will help beauty retailers drive omnichannel experiences
By Rebecca Borison
29 HOME FURNISHINGS AND HOUSEWARES
Home furnishing retailers prioritize content in driving commerce
By Lauren Johnson
30 MARKETERS
Marketers must mix mcommerce and apps for success
By Kari Jensen
32 MASS MERCHANTS, DEPARTMENT STORES AND MALLS
Mass merchants tap payments, social to boost mobile strategies
By Chantal Tode
34 MEDIA
Publishers push mcommerce in native ads to monetize content
By Lauren Johnson
36 MOBILE RETAILERS
Winning mobile retailers get convenience right to bolster loyalty
By Lauren Johnson
37 NONPROFITS
Nonprots look beyond text-to-give to charge mobile fundraising strategies
By Chantal Tode
39 OFFICE SUPPLIES
Ofce supplies push mobile envelope with in-store integration
By Kari Jensen
41 ONLINE RETAILERS
Leading online retailers leverage native-supported mobile platforms
By Lauren Johnson
43 SPECIALTY RETAIL/NON-APPAREL
Specialty retailers boost mobile strategies with customer intelligence
By Rebecca Borison
44 SPORTING GOODS
Sporting goods retailers are prime use case for mobile social
By Chantal Tode
45 TOYS AND HOBBIES
Toys and hobbies retailers play up year-round mcommerce
Kari Jensen
47 TRAVEL AND HOSPITALITY
Travel and hospitality go local and global with mobile commerce
Kari Jensen
PAGE 2 !"#$%& ("))&*+& ,-$%. MOBILE COMMERCE OUTLOOK 2014
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Retailers embrace mobile commerce with fervor
T
he outlook for mobile commerce has never looked
brighter as retailers and merchants of all hues em-
brace mobile as a key medium that not only drives sales
on devices but also to bricks-and-mortar stores where the
bulk of retail still occurs.
As this Mobile Commerce Outlook 2014 classic guide will
show, mobile commerce is a runaway hit for retailers in
an overstored, highly competitive environment where
price often trumps brand.
Mobile commerce conducted on the device is the ultimate
convenience for time-strapped consumers, while shifting
even more control over the purchase-decision process
from retailers.
Street savvy
Forrester Research projected that mobile commerce last
year accounted for $20 billion in sales, expecting double-
digit growth for the next few years.
The majority of that revenue was generated not surpris-
ingly by eBay, Apple, Starbucks and Amazon, as well
as retailers such as Macys, Walmart and Target. But the
interesting development to watch for in the years ahead
is how Main Street retailers have understood that their
shopper has changed, and accordingly adapted.
Previous years discussions focused on mobile Web sites
and applications. Those two mobile channels now are a
given. The emphasis this year and the next is on integrat-
ing store operations with online and mobile, thus giving
rise to the popular term du jour, omnichannel.
What retailers are vying for with mobile help, of course
is a seamless shopping experience across channels.
Smart retailers will not worry about ownership of chan-
nels, but ownership of the customer experience.
Among other trends to expect are better geo-location of-
ferings that recognize customers and prospects in-store,
more sophisticated sites and apps that cut down the
shopping time, in-store pick-up of mobile orders, more
sophisticated search that drives local trafc, targeted mo-
PAGE 3
!"#$%& ("))&*+& ,-$%. MOBILE COMMERCE OUTLOOK 2014
bile advertising and marketing that drives leads to stores,
sites and apps, and the whole notion of mobile payments
which seems to focus on plucking out credit cards from
the equation. Good luck with the last one.
Eye data
Of course, as with any emerging medium, mobile still has
challenges. Chief among them is an issue bedeviling store-
based retail and ecommerce: theft of consumer data.
This hazard has yet to visit the mobile operations of most
retailers. But a leaky sieve may not be helpful to mcom-
merces rapid ascent as a lead and revenue generator for
retailers, accumulating mounds of valuable and conden-
tial data along the way.
Please read this Mobile Commerce Outlook from page to
page. Feel free to send the articles and document link to
colleagues and clients. The insights and analysis in this
edition are meant to help readers make smarter decisions
about mobile commerce.
For their hard work and dedication, many thanks to
team members Chantal Tode, Lauren Johnson, Kari Jen-
sen, Rebecca Borison, Jodie Solomon and our awesome
art director. The articles in this Classic Guide tell an ob-
vious truth: mobile commerce is the present and future
of retail.
Mickey Alam Khan
mickey@napean.com
Apparel and accessories hit pay dirt with mobile wallets
By Kari Jensen and Rebecca Borison
A
pparel and accessories retailers that invest in
building loyalty, creating new relationships and
clinching those interactions with mobile wallets
PAGE 4
APPAREL AND ACCESSORIES
Successful retailers will be those that customize con-
sumers experiences and respond to their increasing
sophistication. Apparel and accessories retailers will no
longer get by with ofering only applications and mo-
bile Web sites, they will have to enable a wider array of
mcommerce features.
At Express, we will continue to evolve our mobile ef-
forts as we learn and adjust to the changing landscape,
said Liz Crystal, chief marketing ofcer at Express,
Columbus, OH.
Our customers continue to shift many of their behav-
iors to be mobile-centric, she said. I think as consumer
behavior changes, we will also need to evaluate how we
measure and attribute mobile activity to commerce
whether that sale happens online or in-store.
Growing mobile sales
Specialty apparel retailers will be forced to embrace
the new reality where smartphone users are leverag-
ing mobile throughout the path to purchase by ofer-
ing enhanced mobile experiences that go beyond just
the basics.
Initially, marketers thought as mobile as an on the go
tool but research shows shoppers grab their phone at
home and at-work out of sheer convenience, even in the
presence of a PC, said Molly Garris, director of digital
strategy and mobile practice lead at Leo Burnett/Arc
Worldwide, Chicago. Less was more for the on the go
use case, but if people are willing to mobile shop from
their couch, marketers need to server up longer form
content to add relevancy.
Videos, inspiration guides, articles and other curated
content should be available for the shopper who is used
to using mobile interchangeably with their PC, she said.
will reap rewards in 2014.
In 2013, many retailers grew mcommerce revenue by
more than 100 percent and even up to 1,000 percent,
but from a low starting point, according to Sam Ganga,
executive vice president, commercial division at DMI
Mobile Enterprise Solutions, Bethesda, MD.
In 2014, we expect retailers to take a more contextual
approach focusing on delivering tailored experiences de-
pending on where you are - in the parking lot, in store,
online, at home, he said.
PAGE 5
The focus will be on the top use cases in each situation,
and well see a drive to customizing the user experience
based on user needs in each situation. One central theme
in this will be that loyalty will become more integrated
in the mobile commerce experience.
Bricks-and-mortar retailers will benet by equipping
staf with mobile devices to better ofer information and
expedite sales and checkouts.
Save the sale promotions will identify consumers who
have not made purchases and try to get them to do so
before they leave the store, according to Mr. Ganga.
High-repeat businesses will launch self-checkout apps
and mobile wallets to make it easy for consumers to
scan items in the store and show their receipts on the
way out.
Development and testing will be more challenging in
2014 due to fragmentation in device sizes, operating
systems and browser versions.
Reaping mobile benets
Retailers that are more advanced in mcommerce, will
benet from taking a use case-centric approach to de-
signing new services. They must involve user testing in
all design and development as often as they can.
This may take a big investment in making sure data is
right, rules are relevant, and there are no performance
issues, Mr. Ganga said. But this brings tremendous
power imagine your brand in the palm of your cus-
tomers hand all the time targeting ofers based on
interests, where they are and how close they are.
This ofers a huge upside for revenue and for loyalty.
Mobile commerce takes back seat to safety for automakers
By Lauren Johnson
W
ith more automakers betting on the connected
car as the next big way for consumers to man-
age their day-to-day lives, promoting safety
PAGE 6
AUTOMOTIVE
As more consumers choose to research big-ticket car
sales on mobile devices this year, there will also be a big-
ger premium placed on tailored mobile campaigns that
prove an ROI and ultimately drive sales for automakers.
At the same time, automakers will continue to innovate
will play a more signicant role than mobile commerce
in 2014.
in mobile content.
As mobile commerce continues to skyrocket via smart-
phone and tablet device adoption, it will be important to
stay exible and quickly monitor user trends and needs,
said Erich Marx, director of social and interactive mar-
keting at Nissan, Franklin, TN.
While still important, the desktop experience will soon
be the minority amongst devices, he said. As a result,
we must develop more innovative thinking to deliver
thoughtful, meaningful, immersive content while servic-
ing all aspects of consumer research and buying within
a mobile environment.
Driving mobile sales
While mobiles role continues to grow for car research,
the majority of consumers will not be buying a car
through their smartphones and tablets in 2014. There-
fore, the medium will primarily link all parts of the car-
buying process together in the upcoming year, particu-
larly with mobile advertising.
In 2013, automakers were quick to jump on new adver-
tising opportunities such as iTunes Radio to hit targeted
groups of consumers to ultimately drive a sales lead or
trafc to a dealership.
Going forward, campaigns that target a specic group
of consumers are what automakers will strive towards.
Additionally, marketers need to focus on delivering
superb mobile sites once a consumer clicks through
an ad.
Sites that ofer 360-degree views, high-resolution
photos and dealer locators will become the norm
for automakers.
Increasingly, ensuring on-the-road safety for mobile us-
ers will be a focus as well.
The opportunity for the automaker in mobile commerce
PAGE 7
in 2014 will largely depend on how integrated their in-
frastructure is to insure theres a seamless connection
with their point-of-sale, their mobile apps and Web sites
and their nancial institutions, said Kayla Green, digital
strategy director at Saatchi & Saatchi LA, Los Angeles.
Conversely, a challenge for automakers in mobile com-
merce in 2014 will be to insure that any mobile-com-
merce related activity is integrated into the customer
experience in a way that promotes safety while on the
road, she said.
Multiscreen users
In 2013, automakers got a better grasp on how con-
sumers are using multiple devices to aid in a big-
ticket purchase.
With these initial learnings, automakers will better tai-
lor campaigns towards specic groups of consumers
this year.
For example, a tablet campaigns should be loaded full of
information and research.
On the other hand, smartphone campaigns will include
calls-to-action that drive an immediate action.
For example, smartphone campaigns that drive trafc to
dealerships, such as click-to-call, maps or a button to
request a quote.
At the same time, the focus on multi-screen campaigns
poses several big challenges for automakers around at-
tribution.
Since consumers are using a variety of devices, attribut-
ing a sale to mobile will be an obstacle for marketers
this year.
Car buyers are also price ckle and are competitively
price comparing on third-party and brand sites. This
means that automakers need to be transparent and ofer
consistent pricing information across each device.
With a signicant percentage of mobile auto consumers
time spent on mobile Web sites, it is critical for auto-
makers to work with SEM and ad provider partners to
examine mobile Web campaigns from both a calls and
clicks perspective.
In 2014, this understanding will likely propel automak-
ers to better gear their marketing campaigns with mul-
tiscreen users in mind, whether by building content spe-
cically for the online experience or using search engine
marketing data to cater better to smartphone or tablet
usage patterns, said Bill Dinan, president of Telmetrics,
Mississauga, Onatrio, Canada.
As mobile wallets and mobile point-of-sale systems take
of, consumers are giving out their personal billing in-
formation to a variety of wallet and payment providers.
In 2014, nancial services will need to move towards
standardized security policies or risk slowing adoption
by consumers who are concerned following a number of
recent high-prole breaches.
There has been a proliferation of card numbers being
stored in lots of places, and weve been a proponent to
create a new standard for payment security that in sim-
ple terms is substituting those payment credentials for a
token that is volatile so the token can be used only once
and if it were compromised it wouldnt matter because I
couldnt use it again for some other purpose, said Domi-
nic Venturo, chief innovation ofcer for payment services
at U.S. Bank, Minneapolis.
Weve been pushing for the industry to come up with
a better answer to protect our customers and the pay-
ment data because the current way that things have
been done, well you read about it all the time, there are
all these data compromises, and that leads to the very
expensive process of reissuing, he said.
I dont know if 2014 will be when the adopting and
change happens, but its something that the industry
needs to be working through.
Consolidation
With new mobile wallet and POS services surfacing every
day, 2014 will likely see some consolidation in the space,
with a few main players leading the way.
As the landscape for mobile-supported nancial services
Banks face growing pressure to address mobile security, payments
By Rebecca Borison
A
s mobile payment options continue to prolifer-
ate, banks and nancial services rms will face
signicant pressure in 2014 to collaborate on a
PAGE 8
universal security solution and to make a bigger push
into mobile payments.
BANKS AND FINANCIAL SERVICES
continues to evolve, banks are better positioned to move
mobile payments forward but must move to take advan-
tage of their strong relationships with consumers or risk
being disintermediated, according to Pradeep Moudgal,
an analyst at Mercator Advisory Group, Maynard, MA.
Banks have this great infrastructure, and they dont take
advantage of it, Mr. Moudgal said. Consumers trust
their banks. Their mobile apps have much more built-in
security measures.
They have millions of customers who are using their on-
PAGE 9
line services, and its in the mobile channel that they can
do a lot more because why would they want to give up
their advantage to all the disrupters when they already
have the client base, he said.
Mr. Moudgal expects the shift to take a while and imag-
ines a new ecosystem will evolve in the next three years
or so.
Especially with their legacy platforms, banks tend to take
longer to make changes.
Core channel
Although there is a lot of innovation in the nancial sector, there are still stragglers who will need to catch up
in 2014.
As consumer expectations rise, banks and nancial insti-
tutions will have to adapt to meet these changing needs.
Banks without mobile check deposit or mobile account
managing will not make it.
The last of the laggards are nalizing their core mobile
banking products, so basic capabilities, including check
deposit are becoming table stakes across the industry,
said Brian Stein, managing director at Pervasive Path,
Cleveland, OH.
The more dynamic institutions spent 2013 re-archi-
tecting those core capabilities onto platforms which can
support distinct customizations and innovations and are
now poised to control their destiny in 2014, he said.
Mobile can no longer be an afterthought for banks and
nancial institutions; it must be a core part of their
overall strategy.
Mobile should lead the way for more robust middleware
that allows for inter-connected systems and a more co-
hesive cross-channel experience, Mr. Stein said.
Banks will need to look beyond existing retail banking
transactions to servicing the whole customer and their
entire set of needs, across the banking relationship,
he said.
Better data speeds and applications are propelling con-
sumers to watch and listen to full-length music and vid-
eos on their smartphones and tablets.
In 2014, Pandora, Hulu and iTunes Radio will increasingly
be in a tight spot to monetize content while also keep-
ing up a top-notch experience for consumers with con-
textually-based ads that drive return-on-investments
Mcommerce success hinges on context for books, music and video brands
By Lauren Johnson
A
though mobile commerce is on track to grow sub-
stantially this year, video and music brands will
need to pack as much data as possible into ad-
PAGE 10
vertising to create contextual messages that win over
consumers wary of making a purchase straight from their
mobile devices.
BOOKS, MUSIC and VIDEO
for advertisers.
In 2014, well see music streaming companies like Pan-
dora, iTunes Radio, and Spotify deliver more personalized
content and better ad targeting capabilities based on all
of the customer data they collected, said Dirk Rients,
senior vice president and director of mobile at DDB Chi-
cago, Chicago.
Due to the continued growth of mobile video, brands
will start to tightly integrate commerce opportunities,
such as purchasing a product straight from a video,
he said.
One challenge that remains is that a majority of con-
PAGE 11
sumers are still somewhat hesitant about making a
purchase from their mobile device. Putting all the avail-
able data into context is a signicant opportunity for
both music and video brands and will ultimately attract
more advertisers.
Fueling mcommerce
Music and video advertising is fueling mobile commerce
with ads that are targeted towards specic groups
of consumers.
In 2013, Apple made a big splash with the launch of
iTunes Radio, an ad-supported free music streaming ser-
vice that is built into its iOS 7 operating system.
The service takes a direct hit at Pandora with an al-
most identical user experience and is an attempt
for the manufacturer to rejuvenate its iAd mobile
advertising business. Spotify also signicantly pivoted
its business from a subscription-based mobile platform
to an ad supported one.
The growth in ad-supported platforms suggests that
premium subscriptions are not working on mobile, and
these companies cannot bank on consumers paying for
media to drive their businesses.
Instead, music and video platforms will need to create
relevant and hyper-targeted advertising opportunities
for marketers to run commerce-enabled campaigns to
keep the money owing.
Additionally, the need for targeted ads is crucial for mu-
sic and video brands since consumers are more bom-
barded than ever by the amount of content that they are
accessing across all devices.
Consumers are experiencing content overload, having
more options than ever in terms of what they are listen-
ing to, reading, watching, etc., so it will be key to take
approaches that stand out from the clutter, said Heidi
Browning, senior vice president of strategic solutions at
Pandora, Oakland, CA.
The best way to do this is to serve consumers engaging
and relevant ads and experiences, she said.
Second screen experiences
As more brands look to incorporate mobile into mul-
tichannel campaigns, video advertising will become
an important way for marketers to drive sales from
television ads.
Marketers have been working to crack the second-screen
nut for years, but the opportunity around mobile com-
merce is still new.
For example, linking up a TV spot to a targeted com-
merce-enabled mobile ad is an opportunity that few
marketers fully leveraged in 2013. To pull this of though,
marketers will need to work to make the shopping expe-
rience as seamless as possible.
We already know that mobile video harnesses the sight,
sound and motion of video to deliver a TV-like experi-
ence in apps in incredibly compelling ways, said Will
Kassoy, CEO of AdColony, Los Angeles.
In 2014, marketers will increasingly deliver their videos
on mobile combined with engaging, interactive rich me-
dia calls-to-action to drive even more ROI, he said.
Over the past few years, B2B brands have steadily rolled
out online commerce.
However, these mobile and Web eforts can no
longer be treated as extensions for sales, much
in the same way that digital has transformed
B2C companies.
It used to be the case in 2008, 2009 and 2010 that
companies could focus on platforming or re-platform-
ing just to sell online and worry about mobile later,
said Andy Hoar, senior analyst at Forrester Research,
Cambridge, MA.
What has really changed in the last year or so and will
be signicant going forward is that companies can no
longer develop mobile in series it has to be done in
parallel, he said.
Giving mobile priority
As more companies look to streamline sales, many B2B
companies are steadily taking their services digital with
online and mobile commerce sites and applications.
These companies typically choose a platform to roll
out commerce.
This can be an expensive process, but ultimately helps
the brands establish an online presence.
At the same time, many of these B2B brands are re-plat-
forming their digital commerce platforms.
These companies are taking home-grown online systems
and revamping their sites.
Since B2B brands must create online and mobile services
in tandem in 2014, sites and apps will be tailored to spe-
B2B brands face increasing pressure to ofer mcommerce
By Lauren Johnson
W
ith mobile commerce now the norm for the
majority of business-to-consumer brands,
business-to-business marketers must develop
PAGE 12
Web and mobile initiatives in conjunction in 2014.
BUSINESS TO BUSINESS
cic devices with unique content.
Mobile development for these brands is typically done by
a third-party or vendor.
According to ndings from Forrester Research at the end
of 2013, 10-15 percent of online trafc for B2B com-
panies was mobile while ve to 10 percent of B2B sales
happened via mobile.
Part of the reason why mobile makes up such as small
PAGE 13
portion of B2B sales is because of the wide price ranges
of a sale. The average order value can be anywhere from
$45 to $45,000.
However, the amount of sales made via mobile is only on
the upswing, and B2B brands should brace now for the
change in clients checking out from their smartphones
and tablets.
Other research from Forrester found that only 50 per-
cent of B2B brands have a mobile strategy, meaning that
brands will have to map out their mobile initiatives for
the long-term in 2014 to justify investments.
For example, B2B companies can rev up some of the slip-
ping sales that are going online with location-based fea-
tures that drive in-store trafc.
Additionally, B2B brands will empower employees with
smartphones and tablets to increase sales and engage-
ment with clients.
In some ways, the mobile use case has renewed the val-
ue of the stores, which is really where this is all heading,
Mr. Hoar said
Its not just online which I include mobile with or
ofine which is just stores, its and, he said.
Business challenges
Despite the need for synced up desktop and mobile ex-
periences, B2B marketers will be challenged to develop
efective digital teams in 2014.
For example, a B2B brand may have an in-house ecom-
merce team, but mcommerce is outsourced.
Additionally, some B2B companies might be still in the
process of developing a Web site and may not be ready
to fully embrace mobile for a new set of initiatives.
Consumers are now trained to expect seamless mobile
experiences across B2C brands and retailers, mean-
ing that clients will expect the same from B2B brands
going forward.
Therefore, B2B brands should leverage their own cus-
tomers for better insight on the types of features that
mobile sites or apps should include.
Think from the outside in, said Rick Chavie, vice presi-
dent of omnicommerce at hybris, Montreal, Canada.
Get strategic customers involved in your mobile initia-
tive so you focus on what they will nd most helpful,
whether self-service for simpler transactions or what
improved capabilities they believe your sales associates
should have, he said.
Catalogers need broader mobile approach that reaches beyond QR codes
By Chantal Tode
C
atalog retailers are likely to be casting about
in search of a meaningful way to interact with
smartphone users now that enthusiasm is waning
PAGE 14
CATALOG
The quest for a successful mobile strategy will take on
added urgency in 2014 following another holiday sea-
son of robust gains in mobile trafc and sales for many
retailers. While catalogers, for the most part, have been
slow to adapt to mobile in part because of their limited
resources, this could be the year many commit to mobile
in a bigger way thanks to the growing number of options
available.
For many catalog-centric brands, weve found that
theyve been slow to adapt to mobile activities, said Lois
Brayeld, CEO at J. Schmid and Associates, Mission, KS.
Its critical that as consumers become more engaged in
mobile activities, brands present a mobile-enabled site.
The challenge, especially for the smaller guys, is one of
expense and resources, she said. It will certainly help as
more platforms ofer a one-stop-solution.
Beyond QR codes
Many catalogers who placed QR codes in their print cat-
alogs with the idea of enabling smartphone users to scan
the bar codes and nd out more about a product or order
it online have abandoned this strategy, per Ms. Brayeld.
This is because too few consumers were willing to take
the necessary steps for so little pay of.
Some catalogers are now experimenting with augment-
ed reality and watermarks as a replacement for QR codes
but, in 2014, look for catalogers to also take a closer
look at enhancing the online shopping experience for
mobile users. This will include optimizing email promo-
tions for mobile, organizing products in high level, easy
to nd categories on Web sites so users can easily tap
through selections, adding PayPal as a payment option
on mobile and creating a shared cart that can be saved
across devices.
for QR codes as way to mobilize print catalogs
As shoppers increasingly browse and buy on mobile
devices, it will be critical that catalogers create a mo-
bile experience that allows customers to nd what they
want quickly and easily, and also gives them multiple
options for buying, said Paige Mazzoni, vice president
of marketing at MarketLive, Petaluma,CA. Responsive
design is an important technology to implement to en-
sure that displays are automatically adjusted to the spe-
cic device being used and that pictures and content are
completely visible.
PAGE 15
Customers have come to expect a seamless experience
between their devices, and responsive design helps en-
sure that experience, she said. Social channels should
also be integrated, to take advantage of buzz generated
by groups of customers.
Many opportunities
Catalogers will also need to use analytics to gain a bet-
ter understanding of how mobile shoppers are engag-
ing with them. This means determining which areas of a
Web site are most visited from a mobile device and then
highlighting these on a mobile commerce site.
Key to the success of these eforts is the need for cata-
logers to not look at mobile as a one-time tactic but as
a bigger opportunity that should be integrated as part of
a broader multi-channel campaign. This means providing
relevant content or engagement for each platform that
consumers are shopping on.
First and foremost, brands must become mobile/tablet
enabled, J. Schmids Ms. Brayeld said. This is an im-
portant investment in the future.
Catalog mailers should begin testing mobile as part of
their communication strategy, she said. For instance,
sending specic ofers while alerting customers that
their catalog will arrive in the next day. Or, ofering a
discount a week after theyve received the catalog.
Consumer electronics mcommerce to skyrocket with more sophisticated programs
By Kari Jensen
C
onsumer electronics retailers and brands must
position themselves in 2014 to gain consumers
allegiance and trust by meeting or beating com-
PAGE 16
CONSUMER ELECTRONICS
Price and availability motivate these consumers.
So mobile-savvy retailers will respond by bolster-
ing - or creating - loyalty programs and enhancing
in-store experiences.
Showrooming behavior is more prevalent in consumer
electronics than anywhere else, said Jay Fiore, vice pres-
ident of marketing at DMI Mobile Enterprise Solutions,
Bethesda, MD. One recent study by Ipsos Media showed
that 42 percent of consumer electronics shoppers who
used their mobile devices in-store ultimately made their
purchases online.
Leading consumer electronics retailers have come to re-
alize they cant hold back this tide, he said. Theyve got
to align with shopping behaviors and become part of the
mobile experience - make personalized ofers to mobile
users in-store.
Let them know theyll beat any ofer, Mr. Fiore said.
[Incentivize] the consumer to buy from them - either in
the store or online.
Bolstering mcommerce
In 2014, consumer electronics retailers and brands will
benet by becoming consumers condant, creating mo-
bile channels for consumers to interact with them, make
requests and reap rewards.
Throughout the year, more consumer electronics retail-
ers will drive increasingly attractive, interactive, sophis-
ticated mobile experiences with consumers. If they fail
to do so, they will be left behind.
Mr. Fiore forecasts huge, huge growth for consumer
electronics mcommerce in 2014.
Consumer electronics is the product category most fre-
quently bought via mobile device, he said. And mobile
petitors prices and ofering incentives via mobile.
commerce is projected to continue to grow at an incred-
ible pace.
BitWizards, for instance, says global mcommerce rev-
enues should reach $119 billion in 2015 - thats nearly
100 times the level in 2009, which was $1.2 billion.
Advancing mobile
The main challenge that the consumer electronics sector
PAGE 17
faces in 2014 is that few brands and retailers are taking
advantage of advance mobile technologies.
Thats the biggest challenge and also the biggest oppor-
tunity, because once they do adopt these, business will
boom, said Walt Geer, vice president product strategy
at PointRoll, New York. The second challenge is earning
consumers trust.
Everyone wants to drive interaction rates, but its harder
to get consumers to trust your brand, he said. Today,
few people trust the experience of buying a CE (con-
sumer electronics) product through a mobile banner.
Gaining trust in users is the biggest challenge.
One way to gain that trust is to pay close attention to ad
design, and to the sites where the ad runs.
It is time in 2014 for consumer electronics to push the
envelope - and do usability testing.
That is, make sure you understand how your users en-
gage with your brand, and why, Mr. Geer said. What
colors do your buyers like to see in CE ads?
What ad designs lead to CE purchases? he said. Test
those out every time, so when you make a big ad spend,
youll know its for something good.
CE brands, like all brands, want to diferentiate them-
selves, he said. So I recommend they be bold, but test
before making the big buy.
Personalization is signicant mcommerce opportunity for drugstores
By Chantal Tode
W
hile the big national drugstores chains are al-
ready leaders in leveraging mobile to enhance
the shopping experience, they cannot rest on
PAGE 18
DRUGSTORES AND PHARMACIES
their laurels in the quickly evolving mobile space and
must embrace greater personalization in 2014 so as not
to lose customers to the competition.
With their positioning as convenience retailers for ev-
eryday items, drugstores are well suited to take ad-
vantage of the growing role that mobile plays in
consumers lives.
From photos and prescriptions to coupons and in-store
navigation, retailers in this competitive sector will con-
tinue to advance their mobile strategies with new appli-
cation and Web site features intended to make it easier
to shop their stores over the competition.
The importance of mobile commerce to drugstores and
related retailers will continue to grow in 2014, said Tim
McCauley, senior director of mobile solutions at Wal-
greens, Deereld, IL.
Consumers are seeking top-notch experiences as they
increasingly make shopping decisions on mobile and
tablet devices, he said. Retailers need to be prepared
to meet customers needs in a relevant and meaningful
way, so that shoppers dont select a competitor.
The area of mobile commerce will likely experience more
opportunities for personalization, which help to create
greater loyalty and afnity for the brand.
PAGE 19
In-store advances
Mobile coupons are one important area for drugstores
that is ripe for further innovation in 2014.
While mobile makes it easy for shoppers save and re-
deem coupons, retailers are still challenged by matching
a mobile coupon to an in-store purchase and solving this
equation will be a big focus this year.
The use of mobile inside drugstores will grow in 2014 via
a focus on new app features such as in-store navigation
as well as with Bluetooth Low Energy beacons that en-
able retailers to deliver ofers at the hyper-local level.
While in-store mobile will ofer drugstores signicant
opportunities to drive sales and create more relevant
experiences for shoppers, retailers will need to be sure
they properly address privacy concerns or risk making
customers uncomfortable.
Mobile payments
This is likely to be the year that drugstores move more
aggressively into mobile payments.
While the mobile payments space is still evolving, leading
drugstores are watching the success that cofee houses,
gas stations and other everyday retailers are having
in payments.
Drugstores recognize the potential to enhance customer
loyalty via payments and are moving beyond a wait-and-
see approach to actively looking for ways to take action.
For example, CVS is one of the partners in MCX, a mobile
payments solution being developed by a consortium of
retailers and whose launch is imminent.
Drugstores will also continue to innovate mobile solu-
tions designed to make it easy for customers to order
photo prints or rell a prescription.
Such services are a prime example of why mobile is such
an important category for drugstores, with Walgreens
reporting that it sees more than 40 percent of print or-
ders coming from mobile and more than half of online
prescription orders.
Mobile has been adopted faster than any other tech-
nology in history and it provides a compelling way to
bring pharmacies closer to their patients, said Mark
Cullen, CEO of Mscripts, San Francisco. Whether
it be to rell medications, improve medication ad-
herence, link incentive programs and more mo-
bile can serve as the bridge for services within the
pharmacy to the patient population and enhance
brand loyalty.
Pharmacies are well positioned to capitalize on mobile
momentum in 2014 by implementing mobile technolo-
gies, he said. Helping patients remember when to rell
and pick up will make the most diference in terms of
customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Mobile and email campaigns can include coupon ofers
to further incent them to purchase items with the phar-
macy and remain loyal.
PAGE 20
ENTERTAINMENT
Entertainment rms must rethink mcommerce strategies for continued growth
By Chantal Tode
W
hile entertainment companies jumped quickly
into mobile, there is still signicant upside po-
tential when it comes to driving ticket sales
In 2014, entertainment rms will need to improve their
mobile content strategies now that apps are nearly ubiq-
uitous and social media sites beyond Facebook continue
to gain in popularity. With mobile trafc to entertain-
ment sites likely to continue to grow in the coming 12
months, marketers need to insure their commerce and
engagement strategies are seamless.
We see as much as 30 percent of trafc to entertain-
ment sites coming from mobile already, so the opportu-
nity is already signicant but is only going to grow as
mobiles share of entertainment trafc becomes larger,
said Dan McDevitt, joint managing director of Woot Me-
dia, Manchester, Britain.
For entertainment producers the key challenge is how
to encourage purchasing from a mobile device, he said.
Although mobile commerce is on the up, particularly
for micro-payments, its still behind where it should be
based on how much time consumers spend on mobile
and the share of advertising spend mobile accounts for.
Click to buy
With Woot predicting a further 60 percent growth in
mobile and 25 percent growth in tablet trafc to en-
tertainment properties in 2014, it will be more impera-
tive than ever that consumer experiences are conducive
to purchasing.
While entertainment companies are leaders when it
comes to enabling users who see an ad for a lm to click
through and buy a ticket, the volume of click-to-buy ads
for lms is still relatively small considering the signi-
cant potential here. This is likely to change in 2014 as
mobile use becomes more sophisticated.
Mobile ofers a unique advantage for entertainment ad-
vertisers, said Mollie Spilman, executive vice president
at Millennial Media, Baltimore, MD. Through mobile
commerce tactics, like click-to-buy tickets, advertisers
entice and empower consumers through utility-driven
functionality.
In Q2 2013, 25 percent of entertainment advertis-
ers on the Millennial Media platform leveraged mobile
commerce as part of their campaign, as compared to 11
and engaging consumers, given the continued growth
in the consumption of entertainment-related content
on mobile.
PAGE 21
percent of advertisers on the platform as a whole, she
said. This percentage will increase in 2014 as consumers
continue to become more comfortable using their mobile
devices for transactions.
Beyond Facebook
Entertainment companies need to have robust mo-
bile content strategies to support their advertising and
ticket-buying eforts. To date, many have come out with
apps and built a presence on Facebook for their lms.
However, they will need to review these strategies in
2014 and possibly change gears to insure continued mo-
bile success.
Additionally, as mobile users increasingly engage with
a variety of social media platforms beyond Facebook,
including Twitter, Vine, Pinterest and others, entertain-
ment companies will need to insure their mobile social
strategies are getting in front of the desired audience.

Its ne to build an app, after all everyone is doing it,
but with everyone building an app these days its going
to be more important to have agility on existing plat-
forms as well, said Leslie Poston, senior social media
strategist at Flightpath, New York.
Engagement and analytics on platforms like Vine and
other mobile apps that exist to share and entertain will
do a lot more for those in entertainment in the long run
than just having an app, she said.
Its not enough to rely on Facebook anymore, either.
With constant changes to the algorithm and limitations
on what people can see and do with Facebook on their
mobile devices as Facebook remains shockingly behind in
its mobile design, Facebook should only be one portion of
your entertainment platform.
Food and beverage merchants must diferentiate mobile experiences to succeed
By Rebecca Borison
W
ith a surplus of mobile applications available
to consumers, food and beverage merchants
will look to add value and create better mobile
PAGE 22
FOOD AND BEVERAGE
experiences for customers in 2014 by leveraging mobile
payments, social promotion and loyalty strategies.
For example, Dunkin Donuts already ofers a mobile-
payments enabled app, and the company recently added
localized ofers and Passbook integration as well. Look-
ing ahead, Dunkin Donuts will continue to think of ways
to enhance the experience on the app, according to
an executive.
It will be more important than ever to diferentiate
yourself and add value, said Scott Hudler, vice presi-
dent of global consumer engagement for Dunkin Brands,
Canton, MA. At Dunkin Donuts, we encourage a cul-
ture of learning and experimentation with new tech-
nologies, but at the end of the day, we go back to the
consumer experience.
Consumers are faced with more messages and apps than
ever, so we always go back to what value were adding
and think this approach has made a big diference with
our guests, he said.
Moving into next year, we see specic opportunity for
brands to grow within their mobile payment applications,
social promotions through these mobile applications and
handheld devices, and the increase and/or development
of loyalty programs.
Streamlined dining experiences
Restaurants, cafes, bars, grocery stores and bakeries have
all been experimenting with mobile POS systems and
bill-paying, and these systems will continue to grow in
adoption and become more streamlined in 2014.
The current list of mPOS systems and checkout applica-
tions is endless, and the list will most likely face con-
solidation this year. The food and beverage industry will
have to gure out what the future of checkout looks like,
providing consumers with the easiest and quickest way
to pay a bill.
Were seeing a substantial increase in electronic POS
systems like Belly, Touch Bistro and Square, with iPads
becoming a standard choice for establishments, said
Will Turnage, vice president of technology and invention
at R/GA, New York.
Automating and systemizing the process for managing
tables and alerting customers via mobile devices makes
the overall dining experience more streamlined and con-
PAGE 23
venient for everyone, he said.
Restaurants are following the lead of social media by
providing a real-time way for customers to pay on their
terms. Many companies are experimenting with new
ways to pay and interact in restaurants (TabbedOut, My-
Check), giving consumers more autonomy when its time
to check out.
Commerce shift
According Scott Thaler, executive vice president of digital
growth and innovation at Zimmerman, Fort Lauderdale,
FL, consumers rank restaurant and food research as one
of their top activities on mobile. He expects this trend
to shift to commerce quickly, signicantly impacting the
space.
Mobile will afect all aspects of the food and beverage
merchants in 2014, from store locators to reservations to
the actual in-store payment.
While consumers have jumped on board with most mo-
bile oferings from restaurants and cafes, the payments
and checkout factor may take a bit more efort from the
merchants in terms of convincing consumers to join in.
Consumers will continue to have distrust of the safety
of mobile payment systems, Mr. Thaler said. Especially
some specic demographic targets who are not native to
the digital space.
That is why marketers have to closely consider the
expense and efort that they will need to put into the
implementation of any type of operational change, he
said. Minimizing both budget and efort to test a new
program is a safe way to test what programs you might
want to expand.
There is no doubt that mobile commerce will continue
to afect the food and beverage category.
Gas stations will rev up mobile payments to boost loyalty programs
By Chantal Tode
E
xpect a much bigger role for gas stations and con-
venience stores in mobile payments in 2014, based
on the success of some initial eforts and the grow-
PAGE 24
GAS STATIONS
ing impact mobile is having on everyday purchases such
as gas or cofee.
More gas stations and convenience stores will also look
for ways to integrate their loyalty eforts with mobile
payments to drive convenience and use for both. Another
key area of focus for these retailers will be on integrating
their loyalty eforts with mobile payments.
As mobile commerce technologies continue to evolve
expect to see more new ways to pay at the pump and in
store in 2014, said Sarah Hodkinson, director of market-
ing and sales strategy at PayPal Media Network, Boston.
Consumers are becoming increasingly familiar with mo-
bile as a method of payment and through new initiatives
to drive habituation through time saving conveniences
and ofers that enable the consumer to save money we
can expect to see a ramp in adoption of these new ways
to pay, she said.
The everyday spend category of gas stations, conve-
nience stores and grocery is a key vertical for mobile
payment adoption by consumers.
Driving customer convenience
Gas stations and convenience stores are all about conve-
nience and so is mobile, meaning strategies that pair the
two make a lot of sense for smartphone users.
Retail stores in general are the most popular commercial
venues where consumers use their mobile device, ac-
cording to research from JiWire. Drilling down further,
within the retail category, convenience stores are the
second most popular retail venue where consumers use
their mobile device at 18 percent compared to 28 per-
cent for clothing stores.
Savvy gas station and convenience stores will leverage
this knowledge to develop comprehensive mobile strate-
gies for engaging with shoppers both before they visit a
location and while they are physically present.
According to our 2013 Mobile Path to Purchase study,
mobile is the main source of information for the Gas &
Convenience category 2/3 of mobile users did not le-
verage any other form of media for information, said
Sarah Ohle, director of marketing intelligence at xAd,
New York. Mobile users want to make a decision right
away, often within the hour, and the majority do go on to
make a transaction after their mobile search.
When rst looking for information on gas and conve-
nience, many people are still undecided so there is plenty
of room to inuence their decisions, she said. Marketers
should leverage this immediate need and reach people
during their search to impact their purchase decisions.
Proximity and price
The evidence of mobiles importance for the gas station
sector is growing, which will spur more chains to jump in
during 2014.
One very active chain in mobile is 7-Eleven, which has
an active SMS program and a robust app that is regularly
updated with mobile ofer.
Cumberland Farms, Speedway and Kangaroo Express are
also active in mobile.
One key strategy that will gain steam next year is geo-
fencing, with PayPals research showing that the gas and
convenience sector saw the biggest lift 68 percent - in
click-through rate performance for mobile ad campaign
by deploying geofencing.
Location and Price are keys to conversion - to aid in
consumers desire to convert, marketers should ofer
convenient comparison tools and deals, xAds Ms. Ohle
said. Finally, mobile users are accessing their devices
on-the-go and typically trying to nd locations within 5
miles. The combination of proximity and the right price
will bring them in the door.
Hardware retailers edge toward mobile as traditional medias role shrinks
By Kari Jensen
H
ardware and home improvement retailers have not
been the swiftest to embrace mobile but they have
made a few inroads, with key opportunities for
PAGE 25
HARDWARE AND HOME IMPROVEMENT
further growing including mobile loyalty, coupons and
social media.
Consumers who are looking to make a home improve-
ment are increasingly using mobile tools to help them
shop online to nd inspiration, research the materials
necessary to buy and locate nearby stores. Mobile is also
a key technology for hardware and home improvement
because it can be an efective way for shopppers to nd
what they are looking for in large stores.
This industry is not known for moving quickly towards
new technology, said Pat Murphy, vice president of
business development at Funmobility, Pleasanton, CA.
However, they know that what theyve been doing in
the past, print ads, circulars, etc., are becoming less and
less efective.
My strong recommendation is that they accept that
mobile is here to stay and they get started, even if
they only want to test in a specic market or group of
stores, he said. Start connecting with their customers
one to one and see how powerful mobile can perform if
done correctly.
Mobile inspiration
With consumers spending a signicant amount of time
looking for inspiration for their home improvement proj-
ects, mobile is ideally suited to help them get in a few
minutes of research when they have a couple of minutes
of downtime.
For this reason, it is imperative that home improvement
retailers have strategies in place with mobile social sites
such as Pinterest and Instagram, where consumers are
increasingly going to look for inspiration.
Such strategies will help home improvement retail-
ers connect with younger consumers who are new
home buyers.
Look for these retailers to do more mobile social compe-
titions asking consumers to take pictures of their com-
pleted home improvement projects and post them.
Savvy home improvement retailers will also look to part-
ner with home improvement apps such as Houzz, that
were developed to make it easy for home improvement
customers to nd inspiration and products at all once.
In-store assistant
Mobile is also heavily used by home improvement cus-
tomers when they are inside a store to research products
and look at reviews. This means that retailers will contin-
ue to build up their mobile presence online so shoppers
do not end up at a competitors Web site. This should
include mobile video how-tos, shopping lists and other
useful information.
Mobile apps that have an in-store mode to help shoppers
nd what they are looking for, read reviews and deliver
ofers will also begin to appear.
One important area of focus for home improvement re-
tailers will be on building an opt-in mobile loyalty data-
base as the importance of email wanes.
Funmobility reports that the value of a mobile opt-in
subscriber to a hardware store is between $1,022 to
$1,322, with hardware dealers seeing mobile lift every
month from $20,000 to $48,000.
Consumers on average own four email addresses and
younger customers are using it less and less replacing it
with text, Mr. Murphy said. I had one retailer lament to
me that he has an email database of 46,000 and he sent
out his holiday promotion and got only 200 opens.

Retailers have to accept that younger customers and
especially women prefer mobile coupons over paper, he
said.
They have to continue to test and learn, there are no
easy answers or guaranteed solutions. The key is to get in
the game and build your mobile loyalty list and connect
with your customers using the technology they live with
every day.
Attribution will help beauty retailers drive omnichannel experiences
By Rebecca Borison
A
s health and beauty retailers include mobile in
more aspects of the purchase cycle, the need to
focus on attribution to determine which tactics
PAGE 27
HEALTH AND BEAUTY
are driving sales will be more important than ever in
2014.
Health and beauty retailers are leveraging mobile for all
sorts of commerce-related actions, be it booking an ap-
pointment, purchasing a product or locating a store from
which to shop. This year, these retailers will need to fo-
cus on determining what works and what drives sales.
Attribution is the opportunity in 2014, said David Shim,
founder and CEO of Placed, Inc, Seattle, WA.
By directly measuring the impact of dollars invested in
mobile, the health and beauty category can identify the
tactics that drive sales replacing vanity metrics like CTR and
app installs, he said.
Omnichannel
As opposed to thinking of mobile as an independent tac-
tic, smart health and beauty retailers will be looking at it
as a part of a bigger multichannel picture. The tagline is
no longer mobile-rst, but rather omnichannel.
The omnichannel experience is going to be critical in
2014, Mr. Shim said. Within health and beauty, mobile
ad targeting can drive awareness, apps enable research
and enhance in-store experiences and payment and lo-
cation drive attribution.
In-store has been an area of focus in 2013 with show-
rooming going mainstream, but the sector should re-
member that there is a world of opportunity outside of
the walls of bricks-and-mortar retailers, he said.
Retailers such as Sephora can attract out-of-store pur-
chases via mobile in addition to bringing consumers in-
store. To do so, however, retailers need to insure that they
have a smooth and easy user experience on their mobile
sites and applications, making it simple for consumers to
purchase via mobile. They can also make their ads shop-
pable with various technology such as augmented reality
and digital watermarking.
Beacon
While Mr. Shim encourages health and beauty retailers
to think beyond bricks-and-mortar, it is still important to
provide the best in-store experience possible.
Rob Murphy, the vice president of marketing at Swirl,
Boston, expects to see health and beauty retailers em-
brace Bluetooth Low Energy beacons available from Ap-
ple, PayPal and others this year in signicant way.
In 2014, we expect to see indoor location beacons in
tens of thousands of stores as major retailers adopt this
exciting new technology, Mr. Murphy said. In-store
beacons will radically change the health and beauty
shopping experience by enabling retailers to deliver per-
sonalized ofers and content precisely when the shopper
is making buying decisions and is ready to spend.
Personalization has particular signicance in the health
and beauty sector where products are inherently spe-
cic and unique to a consumer. If a store can look at
a consumers purchase history and notice that someone
has purchased an anti-frizz conditioner, for instance, the
store can recommend a complementary product that
helps reduce frizz.
The opportunity for beacon-enabled in-store marketing
is huge and long-term success will require health and
beauty retailers to carefully consider the customer ex-
perience and the level of control, exibility, and security
that are required, Mr. Murphy said.
This exciting new capability is developing quickly and
retailers are already jumping on board, he said.
Home furnishing retailers prioritize content in driving mcommerce
By Lauren Johnson
D
espite the growing opportunity for home furnish-
ing retailers to drive incremental sales from mo-
bile applications and sites, they must hone in on
PAGE 29
HOME FURNISHINGS AND HOUSEWARES
developing social and video content in 2014 to keep the
mobile momentum going.
Home furnishing retailers will put a greater emphasis on
engagement since decor and furniture can often be big-
ticket purchases that require long periods of research.
Home goods have been one of the more recession resis-
tant categories and we anticipate the trend to continue
in 2014, said Edward Deutscher, operating vice presi-
dent of digital technology at HSN, St. Petersburg, FL.
Customers are also increasingly shopping for home
goods while they are on the go, from their mobile devic-
es, he said. Weve seen an increase in purchases being
made on tablet devices, particularly for big-ticket items
because of the enhanced ability to view larger items.
Smaller home products across our HSNi brands are per-
forming well on smartphones.
Big-ticket mobile merchandising
Marketers will need to incorporate mobile technologies
that are aimed at showing consumers the dimensions
and quality of products.
Home furnishing retailers such as IKEA and Home Depot
turned to augmented reality in 2013 to demonstrate how
a piece of furniture would t into a consumers home.
Additionally, marketers will rely on augmented reality as
a way to bring static pieces of collateral to life.
Prioritizing content
It is no surprise that consumers are increasingly becom-
ing more comfortable buying big-ticket items through
their smartphones and tablets as retailers develop more
sophisticated apps and sites.
However, mobile commerce will remain a relatively small
opportunity for retailers in driving revenue, particularly
on smartphones with smaller screens
Forrester Research predicts that smartphone-generated
sales will bring in $22 billion, or six percent, of total
online sales in 2014.
The research rm forecasts that mobile will rake in $27
billion in online sales by 2014, which will be equivalent
to eight percent of all online sales.
For ash sales sites such as One Kings Lane, mobile com-
merce has become a crucial way to display limited-time
merchandise to consumers, despite the hefty price tags.
Beyond commerce, social content is a big opportunity for
home furnishing retailers in 2014 to inspire consumers
with home design ideas.
Adding more mobile-specic content that can shared via
social networks or email will likely be leveraged by more
home furnishing retailers in 2014 with the goal of even-
tually driving sales.
In particular, Pinterest is driving signicant trafc to re-
tailers mobile sites from consumers curating their favor-
ite products.
Pinterest also released its API in late 2013 so that retail-
ers can display top-pinned items on sites and apps.
Initial brands to leverage Pinterests tool include Target,
Zappos and Walmart. However, given that home decor is
one of the top product areas on Pinterest, home furnish-
ing retailers are likely candidates for leveraging the tool
in 2014 to take content strategies to the next level.
Commerce will continue to be part of our mobile strat-
egy in 2014, and delivering decorating inspirations and
ideas via mobile channels will also become increasingly
important to online lifestyle brands such as One Kings
Lane in the year ahead, said David Yu, chief product of-
cer at One Kings Lane, San Francisco.
Marketers must mix mcommerce and apps for success
By Kari Jensen
M
arketers must dive head rst into mobile com-
merce in 2014, integrating mobile across their
organizations in order to make gains.
PAGE 30
MARKETERS
To get it right in 2014, marketers must push themselves
to create a mobile ecommerce program featuring an ap-
plication or portfolio of apps.
Their mobile-optimized Web sites should reroute users to
an app download to keep the momentum going.
Marketers need to have a strong app capability to
showcase their products, said Paul Rostkowski, presi-
dent at Varick Media Management, New York. These
apps need to be able to target specic users, markets and
product types.
Mobile and tablet use is on the rise, providing fantastic
opportunities for ecommerce marketers, he said. For
example, 50 percent of Facebooks ad revenue came
from mobile [in 2013].
I predict ecommerce to reect the same makeup in
2014, with a large percentage of revenue coming from
mobile applications.
Favorable ingredients
Challenges for marketers in 2014 will include under-
standing that intricate sites with ashy creative and lots
of video content will strain the bandwidth of some mo-
bile carriers, according to Mr. Rostkowski.
Phones with poor connectivity will load these sites slow-
ly, which could result in abandonment. There will most
likely be some limitations to the speed at which users can
access content and products on their phones or tablets.
Opportunities for marketers in 2014 exist in that user
adoption of mobile and tablet over desktop will continue
to ramp up, according to Mr. Rostkowski.
Theres also an opportunity for B2B marketers to lever-
age mobile as a platform to reach their targeted business
segments, he said.
The rapid growth and usage of both smartphones and
tablets for shopping will shape mcommerce in 2014
versus 2013.
Smartphone penetration will grow to 80 percent in 2014,
up from 74 percent in 2013, according to eMarketer.
Tablet growth is projected to be 64 percent in 2014, up
from 52 percent in 2013. There will be an additional 20
million smartphone users in 2014 versus 2013, according
to Dan Hodges, managing director at Consumers in Mo-
tion, New York.
Winning combination
The outlook for retailers that embrace mobile is
bright, he said. Amazon, eBay, Wal-Mart and Macys
have all seen positive bottom line results from their
mobile eforts.
Mobile-inuenced retail sales are expected to grow to
$1 trillion in 2016, up from $158 billion in 2012, accord-
ing to a Deloitte study and Consumers in Motion esti-
mates, Mr. Hodges said.
Those companies that provide their consumers with
choices will gain market share, he said.
The mobile ecommerce consumer is way ahead of most
marketers allocation of budgets. Retail marketers that
use traditional media mix modeling will be at a disad-
vantage in allocating budgets to drive sales.
Our strong recommendation is to accept the reality that
smart screens ofer consumers the ability to interact
with your brand 24/7, Mr. Hodges said.
Test, learn and scale in rapid innovation cycles is the key
to success in a radio changing market, he said.
PAGE 31
Mass merchants tap payments, social to boost mobile strategies
By Chantal Tode
W
ith mass merchants experiencing signicant
growth from mobile commerce during the
2013 holiday shopping season, it will be criti-
PAGE 32
MASS MERCHANTS, DEPARTMENT STORES AND MALLS
cal for these retailers to further advance the shopping
experience in 2014 for smartphone and tablet owners
through a focus on payments, social commerce and
mobile wallets.
The potential of mobile commerce is by no means lost on
mass merchants such as Target, Walmart and others, as
they aggressively invest in mobile solutions on a number
of fronts, including in-store, online, native applications
and point-of-sale.
With consumers spending growing amounts of time on
their mobile devices, advertising budgets in this channel
are also growing quickly.
Mobile commerce is a critical part in terms of how we
are going to market and how we are connecting with
consumers and making sure we are meeting them where
they are at, said Ravi Jariwala, director of public rela-
tions at Walmart, Bentonville, AR
We saw over 50 percent of our trafc to Walmart.com
between the period of Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday
came from mobile devices, he said. Last year, at our
highest point during the holiday, we maybe got it up to
40 percent.
So, the fact that we are now over 50 percent really
speaks to the growth that we are seeing in mobile and I
think that is why it is going to continue to be critical to
leverage that platform.
Cashless consumers
One important area of focus for mass merchants in 2014
will be on how to meet the needs of cashless consumers
for whom digital interactions are eliminating the need
to carry cash, coupons as well as plastic credit, debit and
gift cards.
Over the past couple of years, mass merchants have re-
acted to the trend toward a digital economy by integrat-
ing with Passbook and other digital wallets and promot-
ing their own digital gift cards.
However, in 2014 look for a more focused, centralized
approach to mobile payments.
For example, MCX, a consortium of leading mass mer-
chants, is developing a mobile payments solution that is
expected to launch soon.
In 2014, merchants and department stores will need
to do a better job of updating strategies that react to
the cashless society consumers crave, but also give them
what theyre looking for in a mobile experience to drive
sales across channels, said Tory Patrick, account director
and leader of the retail technology practice at Walker
Sands, Chicago, IL.
As consumers continue to adopt cashless strategies for
shopping - our 2014 Future of Retail Study demonstrated
that one in ve consumers dont carry any cash and three
in ve carry less than $20 and those numbers were much
PAGE 33
higher among younger generations - there is still a rela-
tively low amount of consumers - only 8 percent - that
are using Passbook-like mobile applications to pay for
goods, she said.
Social shopping
Another important area of focus for mass merchants will
be social shopping. Retailers have been talking about
leveraging technology to enhance the social aspects of
shopping for years but some real strides were made in
2013 thanks to developments such as Twitters social
commerce strategy and Pinterest giving retailers a way
to feature pinned items on their own sites.
Look for retailers to build on these initial eforts in
2014 to simplify the shopping experience on mo-
bile, where small screen sizes require innovative
merchandising strategies.
There is a huge shift towards social commerce on mo-
bile and that will continue to grow in 2014, Ms. Patrick
said. Currently six in 10 consumers interact with brands
on social media - even further 53 percent of consum-
ers have had a YouTube video inuence a purchase deci-
sion and 17 percent have discovered a product through
Pinterest.
Brands that want to be successful in 2014 will need
to nd a way to tie together not only the in-store and
online/mobile commerce experience, but also the social
commerce experience, she said.
Publishers push mcommerce in native ads to monetize content
By Lauren Johnson
W
ith advertisers increasingly demanding to
prove mobiles value and readers consuming
content on their smartphones and tablets at
PAGE 34
MEDIA
unprecedented levels, mobile commerce will need to play
a central role in publishers mobile initiatives in 2014.
With publishers such as Cond Nast now hitting 50
percent of trafc from mobile, 2014 will be the year
that publishers will nally be forced to gure out mon-
etization on sites and applications. This means taking
a cross-platform approach that follows a reader across
multiple screens.
Mobile commerce in 2014 will be more cross-platform
than ever before, said Drew Schutte, executive vice
president and chief integration ofcer at Cond Nast,
New York.
It will also be more integrated directly into advertising
than it has been, especially in native formats, he said.
There will also be an increased use of data to drive con-
textual and real time ad executions.
Commerce priorities
Advertisers increasingly want to take advantage of con-
sumers glued to their mobile devices to drive direct sales
from campaigns.
These readers already trust the publishers content
when it comes to recommending products and servic-
es, giving advertisers an advantage in connecting with
publishers readers.
Publishers will need to take their existing content and
add other elements such as location and motion to drive
commerce for advertisers campaigns.
With the power of the banner ad dwindling, native ad-
vertising is another way that publishers are tackling
the need for relevant ads that t in with other forms
of content.
Often times, these native ads can be misleading as edito-
rial content, and publishers and organizations will have
to set standards for the industry in 2014 to keep the
momentum around native advertising going.
Additionally, publishers will need to nd ways to make
their mobile and native advertising units scale. The
growth in digital consumption of content means that
advertisers want to reach more consumers than they
have traditionally with big print media buys.
To help with building out native advertisers, publishers
will turn more to programmatic ad buying by developing
their own ad exchanges that let advertisers bid and buy
inventory in real-time.
Print to mobile
In addition to leveraging mobile commerce within mo-
bile sites and apps, publishers will activate their print
pages with calls-to-action that drive sales.
Print-to-mobile technology is nothing new, but up until
recently it has only been used by publishers to link read-
ers to additional content.
In 2014, this will change as publishers ofer print adver-
tisers more ways to drive mobile trafc and conversions
from glossy ads.
Magazine media are increasingly becoming a more im-
portant point of inspiration for shoppers along their path
to purchase, said Ed Knudson, executive vice president
of sales and marketing at Digimarc, Beaverton, OR.
We expect more publishers to enable their audiences to
seize that inspiration by providing shopping and shar-
ing capability from print their most widely circulated
platform, he said.
However, this also requires publishers to stick with one
universal print-to-mobile technology so that readers do
not need to download multiple apps to interact with the
pages of a print magazine.
For example, Hearst Corp.s House Beautiful became the
rst magazine this year to leverage Digimarcs digital
watermarking technology to bring advertising content
to life.
The magazine has previously incorporated digital water-
marks into editorial content for several years.
What we are seeing now is just the beginning of what
publishers are going to be able to do with mobile com-
merce, said Kate Kelly Smith, senior vice president of
the Hearst Design Group and chief revenue ofcer at
House Beautiful, New York.
Our readers have always looked to us for ideas on what
to shop for, and now they expect mobile commerce ca-
pability to take that next step through to purchase, and
were excited to bring that to them, she said.
There is tremendous opportunity for publishers in
this space.
PAGE 35
Winning mobile retailers get convenience right to bolster loyalty
By Lauren Johnson
A
s more consumers turn to their smartphones and
tablets to shop, mobile retailers will need to win
consumers over in 2014 with top-notch and in-
PAGE 36
MOBILE RETAILERS
tuitive mobile shopping experiences to clinch sales.
Despite the growing volume of trafc, mobile still rep-
resents only a fraction of online sales for retailers. For
mobile commerce to grow, retailers need to look beyond
cookie-cutter mobile sites and applications with richer
features including virtual sizing, predictive product rec-
ommendations and high-resolution photos.
In late 2012 and 2013, we saw mobile consumers exhib-
it some rabid mobile shopping behavior, surpassing the
PC-based Web in terms of frequency and engagement,
said Adam Guy, senior vice president at Millward Brown
Digital, New York.
They did this in spite of a mobile shopping experience
that was less than satisfying, he said. In 2014, we ex-
pect the convenience and immediacy of mobile to fur-
ther trump the higher-quality and more functional expe-
riences like the PC.
This will test the capacity and usability of mobile retail-
ers. The ones who get it right will gain near-term share
plus convert promiscuous shoppers into loyal buyers.
The fast lane
With mobile hitting upwards of 40 percent of revenue for
ash sales sites Gilt and Rue La La in 2013, it is clear that
traditional Web companies are bracing for a mobile-rst
shopping world.
The consumers that visit these online-only retailers are
also accessing the brands more frequently. Research re-
leased from Millward Brown at the end of 2013 shows
that online pure play retailers such as Amazon or eBay
average 5.8 monthly visits from a mobile shopper.

On the other hand, bricks-and-mortar retailers only av-
erage 2.9 monthly visits from a mobile shopper. This sug-
gests that as retailers get more comfortable shopping
from their devices, they are looking for features that
go beyond utility functions such as store locators that
bricks-and-mortar retailers already have in place.
Instead, consumers are turning to their mobile devices
for some of the features that are more exclusive to on-
line retailers, such as frequent merchandising or tailored
mobile-only ofers.
Two thousand and fourteen will see greater investment
in mobile where the emphasis will be on strengthening
the customer experience, said Lauren Freedman, presi-
dent of the e-tailing group, Chicago. Consumers will
drive those desired experiences given their increased
consumer adoption across the board.
Test and learn
To keep up with the natural advantage that online retail-
ers have in the space, bricks-and-mortar retailers must
step up to the plate with mobile in 2014.
Showrooming moved on from a novelty to the norm for
retailers in 2013 with Best Buy, Staples and Toys R Us
all embracing the mobile price-checking tactic to cre-
ate more compelling in-store experiences. From in-store
modes that help consumers navigate a store to reward-
ing check-ins as part of a loyalty program, there is no
doubt that retailers prioritized the in-store experience
in 2013.
However, many of these eforts were pilot programs that
were only tested at a handful of stores. This is likely to
change in 2014 once retailers understand the impact of
mobile from the recent holiday season.
I think retailers will view 2013 as the inection-point
year for mobile, moving from something to watch, to
something that must be done and done well, said Nikki
Baird, Denver-based managing partner at RSR Research.
Lots of retailers have been experimenting, but the per-
formance [of the 2013] holiday season will be enough to
get them all to move those experiments into the main-
stream.
Nonprots look beyond text-to-give to charge mobile fundraising strategies
By Chantal Tode
R
edirecting mobile fundraising strategies in the face
of growing questions about the viability of text-
to-give programs will be an important focus for
PAGE 37
NONPROFITS
nonprots in 2014 as these organizations increasingly
adopt a more holistic approach to reaching smartphone
and tablet owners.
Nonprots text-to-give strategies were delivered a cou-
ple of blows near the end of 2013 with carriers all but
eliminating support for premium texts and an update
to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act complicat-
ing SMS marketing. With the amount of time consumers
spend on mobile devices continuing to grow, nonprots
increasingly recognize the need to be in front of these
consumers with a comprehensive, integrated strategy.

Like any other organization that attempts to engage its
supporters via mobile devices, charities must stop view-
ing mobile engagement segmented by platform type,
said Jim Manis Founder and CEO of the BBB Mobile Giv-
ing Foundation, Arlington, VA.
Messaging, apps, ads, and the web are all a part of the
same symphony that delivers its music to you directly,
and often in concert with other channels including so-
cial, television, and radio, he said.
When you get those texts and tweets in sync with
browsing, downloads and ad placements you can start
applying a truer measure of the impact of mobile that
dene metrics against diverse goal sets including mis-
sion awareness, donor acquisition, donor engagement,
and funds raised.
Replacing text-to-give
Text-to-give has been an important strategy for nonprof-
its for a several years, enabling many to raise signicant
funds for specic natural disasters.
However, going into 2014, it is unclear how big a role
text-to-give will have going forward.
The rst diference we see as 2013 closes and 2014 ar-
rives is the rapid decay in the interest around text-to-
give, said Dale Knoop, founder and CEO of Raz Mobile,
Overland Park, KS. We have many customers who have
given up on text-to-give for reasons like cost, lack of do-
nor info, lack of real-time reporting, no crowd-funding
potential and on and on.
As mobiles importance continue to grow as a tool for
searching the Internet and consuming digital content,
one area where some nonprots will place a greater
emphasis in 2014 will be on developing robust mobile
Web sites.
At the close of 2013, nonprots are discovering that
they have a growing amount of mobile trafc coming to
their main URL and that relying on their PC site to serve
mobile visitors is not the path they should take in 2014,
Mr. Knoop said.
There are two reasons driving this, he said. One, Google
could and will likely lower your search rank relevancy
without a mobile-optimized site available to mobile visi-
tors to your main URL.
Two, there are reports coming out that nonprots could
be missing 50 percent or more of donations since their
PC donation page, which is all they have for mobile visi-
tors, is too hard to complete on a phone.
Social media
Nonprots will also increasingly tap mobile applications
and social media, including hash tag marketing, to raise
funds along the lines of Googles One Today app that
enables users to donate one dollar to charities and the
holiday fundraiser for the Oregon chapter of Childrens
Heart foundation that leveraged a mobile-optimized
Facebook app.
In 2014 we see nonprots no longer viewing the need
for a great mobile experience as optional as they see oth-
ers following the best practices as laid out by Googles
change in their search algorithm and as they come to
grips with the fact that their PC donation page is just too
hard to complete on a mobile phone, Mr. Knoop said.
Ofce supplies push mobile envelope with in-store integration
By Kari Jensen
T
he ofce supplies sector will create more opportu-
nities for consumers to use mobile devices to in-
teract with displays and products in-store in 2014.
PAGE 39
OFFICE SUPPLIES
Retailers will expect consumers to search and browse
online with their mobile devices while in-store, whereas
in the past that was not always a given. Savvy retailers
will equip sales staf with tablets and smartphones so
they can better service consumers.
Mobile in-store engagement is a trend that is red hot
right now, said Wilson Kerr, vice president of business
development and sales at Unbound Commerce, Boston.
Ofce supplies are a highly commoditized product line,
so it is often not necessary for consumers to hold and
touch every single SKU, before they buy.
Because of this, the ofce supply sector is a perfect sec-
tor for smart retailers to experiment with product-less
retail environments, that are powered exclusively by mo-
bile, he said. QR codes and NFC tags can allow prod-
ucts to link themselves to a mobile commerce experience
that allows a consumer to convert the sale via a device
they trust, [such as] their own smartphone.
And digital wallets like Google Wallet or PayPal Express
Checkout can allow this sale to happen in one click.
Touch commerce
In 2014, for example, Unbound Commerce, will position
for growth in ofce supplies by rolling out its touch
commerce initiative, which will use large format touch-
screens to allow consumers to engage via mobile com-
merce, in-store.
The retail environment becomes a trigger point for in-
tegrated mobile sales, delivered on a consumers smart-
phone, or delivered in-store via these large screen touch
kiosks, Mr. Kerr said. Staples has already announced
several mobile concepts stores, and we expect to see
more of this in 2014.
The biggest challenge the ofce supplies sector will
face in 2014 is the same challenge that many retailers
are facing.
This is the threat of category killer online giants like
Amazon, and their ability to undercut pricing and ofer
free shipping, etc., said Mr. Kerr.
Since ofce supplies retailers almost always have physi-
cal stores and the accompanying overhead, they will
need to be extremely aggressive with pricing, and ex-
plore brave new frontiers, that allow consumers to take
advantage of the personal customer service they want,
while also getting quick shipping and prices that match
what they can nd elsewhere, online, he said.
Expect new competition in the ofce supplies consum-
ables /accessories markets from hardware and consumer
electronics companies, as they are seeing greater mar-
gins on these items than their core hardware products.
Just as Hewlett Packard went into the paper and print-
ing product sectors, look for Samsung and others to
expand their oferings, said Jay Samit, executive vice
chairman at Rock Dome, Los Angeles.
The combination of smartphones and cloud services will
enable more people than ever before to work from home
in 2014, so the small business /home ofce sector will
see a major spike in sales of ofce supplies.
Making [applications] that anticipate ofce supply
needs will be the secret to capturing this market, Mr.
Samit said.
Another big change for 2014 in ofce supplies will be
products designed for life on the go.
New wearable accessories for smartphones and smart
watches will allow road warriors to increase their pro-
ductivity, Mr. Samit said.
The biggest change in 2014 will be 3D cameras on most
new smartphones, he said.
Similar to Microsofts Kinect for Xbox, these
new Androids and iPhones will be able to be
controlled hands-free.
An added benet will be the ability to identify fore-
ground images from background, so expect lots of people
hanging small green screens in their cubicles or ofces to
make fun seles, he said.
Leading online retailers leverage native-supported mobile platforms
By Lauren Johnson
T
o stay ahead of the game in 2014, online retailers
will move on from outsourcing mobile applications
and sites to platforms that natively support the
PAGE 41
ONLINE RETAILERS
medium to keep pace with consumers constantly chang-
ing mobile expectations.
Online retailers have an advantage over bricks-and-mor-
tar retailers when it comes to mobile since consumers
are already accustomed to shopping online and are now
doing so from their smartphones and tablets at record
levels. However, retailers that treat mobile sites and
apps diferently than Web sites with cookie-cutter de-
signs will lag behind those who integrate mobile into
existing systems.
In 2014, retailers that have consolidated their content
management and ecommerce experiences on modern
platforms that natively support mobile are going to have
a signicant advantage over those that still outsource
their mobile optimization to a third party, said Jason
Goldberg, Chicago-based vice president of the commerce
practice at Razorsh.
Moving past screen size
Up until now, online retailers have primarily focused on
shrinking down content to t on a smaller mobile screen.
Additionally, the proliferation of new devices is a chal-
lenge for brands in deciding which platforms and operat-
ing systems are most important.
To keep pace, retailers have outsourced their mobile ini-
tiatives, which typically result in cookie-cutter mobile
apps and sites with only a few of the features that are
ofered on Web sites.
As retailers put a bigger emphasis on mobile, online
retailers are trying to cram more onto shopping pages,
which is causing slow load times and therefore hindering
mobile conversions.
This is especially true for retailers that are solely rely-
ing on responsive design to solve mobile, according to
Mr. Goldberg.
Slow pages are a major inhibitor of ecommerce conver-
sion, so retailers that are able to ofer fast mobile experi-
ences are getting outsized returns, he said.
Instead of focusing on loading mobile sites and apps
with more content, online retailers will need to hone in
on context to win at mobile in 2014.
For example smartphone and tablet experiences for on-
line retailers are still similar, despite the vastly diferent
use cases for each device.
Additionally, online retailers will continue to branch out
into pop-up stores to experiment with bricks-and-mor-
tar shopping experiences.
Leveraging mobile to tie together all of the diferent
channels is a top priority for retailers including Frank &
Oak in 2014.
In 2014, well focus on closing the customer experience
loop, said Ethan Song, CEO/cofounder of Frank & Oak,
New York.
Between the Web site, apps, emails and pop-up shops,
there are a lot of customer touch points to think about,
and its important to make sure mobile is a native part of
every customer experience, he said.
Social impact
Mobile trafc to Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and other
social sites hit record levels in 2013.
Additionally, the advertising opportunities on these sites
grew signicantly to help these sites monetize.
Besides advertising, there is a bigger opportunity for re-
tailers with social media to inuence content strategies
in 2014 to drive trafc to mobile sites and apps and ulti-
mately cement sales.
In particular, Pinterest will be a platform for retailers to
watch in 2014 as the site gears up its mobile advertising
strategy, which will benet retailers since their content
is some of the most-pinned content on the site.
Online retailers, especially those more vertical, non-big
box retailers, need to harness the opportunities that so-
cial media provides, especially when it comes to their
mobile commerce play, said Paul Buss, CEO of Ziftit, San
Diego, CA.
For example, nding opportunities to leverage top in-
uencers on social platforms, which are increasingly in-
spiring trust and awareness for products, will help make
them relevant and build brand loyalty, he said.
Specialty retailers boost mobile strategies with customer intelligence
By Rebecca Borison
N
on-apparel specialty retailers will take advantage
of their customer relationships to up their mobile
game in 2014 via social media, television integra-
PAGE 43
SPECIALTY RETAIL/NON-APPAREL
With giants such as Amazon and Walmart nearing a
monopoly in mobile, non-apparel specialty retailers will
need to get creative to win over mobile consumers. The
focus will be on gathering as much information about
shoppers as possible in order to better understand their
needs and tailor the mobile experience to them.
Mobile commerce in 2014 will become more intelli-
gent, said Joseph Lezon, chief technology ofcer of Alex
and Ani, Cranston, RI. It will have a 360 degree prole
of you as a customer.
Creative approach
For non-apparel specialty retailers to maintain a
strong mobile presence and insure that consumers do
not opt for a big-box retailer instead, they will need
to focus on creating good experiences on mobile Web
and applications.
These retailers will increasingly ght for attention with
engaging social media campaigns that draw in consum-
ers to a mobile site or app. For example, expect to see
these retailers leveraging social mobile contests that ask
consumers to post about a brand on their social media
pages. Second-screen strategies that integrate TV will
also play a bigger role.
For non-apparel specialty retailers, the biggest chal-
lenge for mobile in 2014 will be garnering users atten-
tions, said from Eugene Signorini, vice president of mo-
bile insights at Mobiquity, Wellesley, MA.
With the proliferation of mobile applications, its not
easy to get space on consumers valuable smartphone
real-estate, he said. And Web searching for products
could easily drive users to folks like Amazon and Walmart.
For non-apparel specialty retailers to gain presence,
theyll need to get creative. This means leveraging things
like social media to drive app discovery, integrating tele-
vision with mobile applications, and leveraging loyalty
programs on mobile to drive users to their app or mobile
Web site.
Winning experiences
To steer consumers away from big mobile retailers, non-
apparel specialty retailers will need to make sure that
their mobile experiences are both unique and convenient.
A jewelry retailer such as Alex and Ani will need to
create a reason for consumers to visit its site instead
of Amazon.
Maria Haggerty, president at Dotcom Distribution,
Edison, NJ, suggests nding something to give a mo-
bile presence the added edge it needs to beat out the
bigger players.
For instance, Ms. Haggerty points to high-end Italian
food retailer Eataly. The company could save consum-
ers shopping lists in its mobile app and then recommend
recipes or menus based on that list.
Consumers could then check a recipe or menu, and all of
the products will be ordered. This saves consumers time
and gives them a reason to visit an Eataly app.
Non-apparel specialty retail is an interesting niche,
so it will face some challenges unlike other retail cat-
egories, Ms. Haggerty said. For example, gourmet
food companies will need to replicate the in-store ex-
perience on mobile, especially since theyre attempt-
ing to sell food products through a tiny screen to
on-the-go consumers.
These companies will need to not only focus on an easy
and secure mobile commerce strategy, but they will also
need to add in another component something that re-
ally drives the shopping experience, she said.
It will be all about focusing on convenience and a
unique customer experience in order to stimulate
mobile purchases.
tions and loyalty.
Sporting goods retailers are prime use case for mobile social
By Rebecca Borison
S
ince sports are inherently social, savvy sporting
goods retailers will tap into the opportunity sur-
rounding mobile social in 2014 to increase mobile
PAGE 44
SPORTING GOODS
It all starts with having a mobile-optimized commerce
site, but retailers should then proceed to create mobile
social campaigns to drive awareness of their brands and
attract consumers to the mobile site. If consumers are
posting about a store or brand on their social networks,
this will have a snowball efect for the retailers business.
As consumer condence grows, sporting goods retailers
should grow their mobile commerce eforts, to fuel both
mobile trafc and conversions, said Wilson Kerr, vice
president of business development and sales at Unbound
Commerce, Boston.
There is a particular social element to how sporting
goods are sold, as teams and teammates often inuence
sales, he said. For this reason mobile is a particularly
good channel through which to sell sporting goods.
Sporting goods retailer Sports Unlimited saw their mo-
bile commerce sales increase year-over-year by 86 per-
cent for [Nov. 2013], and these numbers are not unique.
Mobile optimization
Look for sporting goods brands and retailers to focus
more on creating excellent user experiences on mobile
site and applications.
Obviously, a dedicated, integrated mobile site is a must-
have, Mr. Kerr said. Retailers should be wary of paint-
ing themselves into a one for all corner with responsive
design and, as mobile makes up 30, 40 and even 50 per-
cent of trafc, we are seeing retailers acknowledge the
need to treat mobile as its own unique channel and more
than a shrunken version of their main etail site.
Once retailers have the site down, they will look to-
wards more advanced technology to drive trafc to these
commerce sites.
Creating a connection
For sporting goods retailers especially, 2014 will be the
year to create a community around mobile. Brands will
need to reach out to consumers with relevant content
and messaging to attract their attention.
Sports retailers will be looking for more than just that
initial one-way connection with their customer, said
Pete Banicevic, director of sports and entertainment
cross-channel marketing at Tagga, Vancouver, Canada.
We believe they will require more of a well thought out
mobile content strategy to move the customer through an
interactive experience across multiple channels, he said.
However, Mr. Banicevic warns against looking only at
building up a database. Instead focus on the commu-
nity aspect, highlighting the personal engagement. For
instance, a soccer gear brand might send an MMS video
of soccer drills to consumers that have purchase soccer
cleats from them.
Understanding exactly who their customers are and be-
ing able to determine which customers in their commu-
nity (database) are the most valuable, not only in terms
of life time value based on purchases, but also how in-
uential that customer is to their own network, Mr.
Banicevic said.
commerce and drive sales.
Toys and hobbies retailers play up year-round mcommerce
By Kari Jensen
T
oys and hobbies mobile retailers will gain success
in 2014 by featuring themselves on mobile con-
sumers radar throughout the year, not just during
PAGE 45
TOYS AND HOBBIES
These specialty retailers must focus on leveraging mobile
year-round.
Additionlly, they must reach beyond SMS to other mobile
messaging strategies.
We will see more people using their mobile [de-
vices] to check price, stock and location [in 2014],
said Charlie McCorkell, president at Bicycle Habitat,
New York. Review sites like Yelp will also continue
in popularity.
I also see increased use of vicinity coupons to move a
sale forward, he said.
Bicycle Habitat sells merchandise on both its mobile and
desktop Web sites and in its stores in Chelsea, SoHo and
Brooklyn in New York.
Play it up
Retailers are seeing an increase in sales via mo-
bile devices, and mobile sales are growing faster than
Web sales.
This trend is expected to continue in 2014.
For example, Q4 United States ecommerce retail
spending for toys and hobbies increased 15 percent in
2012, compared to the same period in 2011, according
to comScore.
Increasing annual mobile Web sales during every quarter,
not just Q4, should be a goal for both large and small
toys and hobbies mobile retailers.
To gain and maintain momentum, toys and hobbies mo-
bile retailers must ramp up year-round mcommerce via
loyalty programs, special events, discounts and other
mobile oferings.
Only three toys and hobbies mobile retailers were listed
among The Mobile 400, Internet Retailers 2013 list of
mobile commerce and marketing leaders.
The Discovery Channel Store Inc. was ranked at 205, with
$2.5 million in mobile Web sales in 2012, while Chelsea
holidays or peak seasons.
& Scott Ltd. was ranked at 216 with almost $2 million in
mobile Web sales.
Urban Collector came in near the bottom at No. 398,
with $25,000 mobile Web sales.
In the game
Advancing into 2014, toys and hobbies mobile retailers
need to gure out how to integrate mobile into the play
experience for children. They also need to localize content.
In addition, toys and hobbies retailers must opti-
mize their existing mobile Web sites and x any bugs
and problems because not doing so will hurt their
bottom line.
Mobile sites must load quickly and be easily available.
Smaller retailers and/or those with lower annual sales,
may nd it harder to leverage mobile and designate
funds to grow mcommerce.
Hobby sites - like ours - will continue to face the dollar
challenge of trying to compete with the better capital-
ized sites, Mr. McCorkell said.
In 2014, toys and hobbies retail sites will make great
strides in the mobile space, especially extremely sleek,
user-friendly mobile sites on which people actually make
purchases, according to Jonathan Opdyke, CEO and co-
founder of HookLogic, New York.
Advertising in the mobile space also will become more
prevalent for toy brands, as more opportunities be-
come available in both standard and retail-site search,
he said.
Competition in the space amplies on mobile be-
cause consumers may not see many choices at
one time.
This makes it more important than ever for retail-
ers to position their companies/brands at the top of
search lists.
Going forward, toys and hobbies retailers will benet
from embracing mobile, according to Mr. Opdyke.
Take any opportunity you can to better highlight your
brand in the mobile space, but dont think about it in a
vacuum, he said.
Mobile ties into every single other aspect of toy mar-
keting, and its important to keep your focus on the
bigger picture.
Travel and hospitality go local and global with mobile commerce
By Kari Jensen
T
ravel and hospitalitys mantra for 2014 will be:
Meet consumers needs with mcommerce before,
during and after their journeys.
PAGE 47
TRAVEL AND HOSPITALITY
Tech- and mobile-savvy travelers are increasingly using
smartphones and tablets to plan, book, pay for and then
conrm their journeys.
The consumers then bring along their devices to docu-
ment - with videos and photos - their trips and share
their memories via social media - all instantaneously.
The rate of change and acceptance within the mo-
bile space will continue to amplify in 2014, said Cezar
Kolodziej, president and CEO of Iris Mobile, Chicago. This
means beyond basic information like travel conrma-
tions and location based information, the next step for
the hospitality industry is to really capitalize on person-
alized mobile communication to deliver a truly relevant
experience to users.
What will stand out for travel and hospitality brands in
2014 is the pursuit to make their customers important
along every step of their journey, he said. Using a mo-
bile device gives these brands a unique opportunity to be
within arms reach every step of the way.
This means this vertical should push forward with con-
textual information and personal communication via
mobile that will make the experience truly welcoming
for consumers.
Going everywhere
The major opportunities for travel and hospitality include
new mobile innovations such as proximity based mes-
saging, where personal ofers can be delivered directly
to their mobile handsets as consumers travel - when it is
most needed.
Taking customer service to the next level with relevant
information about consumers interests, destination
highlights, just-in-time alerts and notications will truly
take the mobile experience one step further.
Other major opportunities include mobile payments to
facilitate the transactional experience for users.
Challenges will include the consolidation of big data to
understand what data is important and how to establish
consistent rules of communication to deliver the most
relevant information for travel and hospitality consum-
ers at the right time.
Two thousand and fourteen should be marked with a
deeper understanding of travel and hospitality consum-
ers, Mr. Kolodziej said.
We need to deliver personalized mobile experiences to
welcome guests and make them feel special, all with a
simple mobile interaction that makes sense, he said.
Building memories
It is not enough to simply build a mobile experience
anymore we need to understand the conversation that
takes place throughout the customer journey and insure
we capitalize on every opportunity to provide a great ex-
perience and send a consistent message, he said.
For example, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council
- or HKTDC - supports that citys reputation of being a
modern trading port.
The HKTDC organizes many trade shows each year, which
attract thousands of professionals and tourists.
Rebecca So, marketing communications manager in the
exhibitions department at HKTDC, said the organization
has two major applications, which can be downloaded
for free.
[With] the HKTDC mobile app, users can obtain insight-
ful market intelligence categorized by region/industry/
topic, browse the HKTDC trade fairs and events list and
reserve for admission badge, Ms. So said. The HKTDC
Product Magazines app allows user to browse HKTDC
ofcial fair catalogues as well as search products and
locate exhibitors with customized oor plans.

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