The number of transactions on mobile are big and getting bigger. This information has been predicted over 2 years ago and consumer engagement through mobile is pretty well following the trend lines.

I am amazed at the number of retailers or pure plays that still wrestle with how to approach the mobile space. I know companies that were trying to decide last year at this time what to do and still have not done anything about it.

Want to see a real sobering statistic- look at this from marketing charts.com , 2 in 5 mobile shoppers penalize a retailer for an unsatisfactory mobile experience. Again, nothing new to those of us that are sheep dipped in the mobile space, but the real question is- when are retailers going to jump in with both feet into the mobile water instead of toe-dipping?

Yes, I have heard it all- Our IT department has it all under control; Our budget won’t support the investment; Our strategy is to just do an iPhone APP; Our systems integration process takes quite a while- yada yada yada!

The real winners are those companies that are defining mobile as a real vertical within their eCommerce or Internet group. Where there is a budget, resources and authority- not just responsibility. Fore warned is fore armed- mobile is only going to get bigger.

Current estimates are that 8.5-percent are actually shopping via phone or tablet- that is actual mCommerce transactions- not including all the usage of a mobile device to enhance the shoppers buying decision. Those are big numbers!

Use internal data to justify the investment- if your PC site is getting 6% or more engagements form a mobile device currently, you better have a plan in place to satisfy those customers with a reasonable brand experience. If the engagement is 10% or greater right now, you better RUN to exploit that customer and quickly, because the consumer will make the choice and vote with their dollar and if you don’t take care of them in mobile cyber space, guess what- someone else will – retail 101.

Now the iPad still looms out there at 65% surveyed planning to buy the clear leader Apple product, but hey, no other manufacturer has given Apple any kind of run for their money until now.

Now the Nook wasn’t in the survey, so we still don’t know how that factors in, but all other tablets fell a distant third- and as a herd in third!

There can be a lot read into this, but I say the jury is still out. 4th quarter sales and shipped units will tell a fuller story, but the point is- well the Kindle Fire hasn’t been out long and its taken a bite of the Apple.

Yes, those of us that have been around a while- say over 5 years- have seen a lot change, Mostly we have seen retailers slowly waking up to the fact that virtually all of their customers shop using a mobile device at some point in the shopping process!

This is brought home clearly in the Forrester white paper ‘Market Overview: Mobile-Commerce Solutions For Retail’ release August 4^th 2011.

Peter Sheldon does a great job of identifying the current state of mCommerce, the approach to mCommerce that retailers are currently taking and those companies that stand up to the rigors of enterprise grade requirements of moving eCommerce into mCommerce.

I am happy to say the SiteMinis Inc made the grade of the few companies that have real mCommerce solutions.

Sheldon noted that retailers are taking one of four approached to mobile when determining how to deploy mobile engagements.

1- Use the existing eCommerce Platform Vendor

2- Delegate to their Interactive Agencies or Systems Integrators

3- Build in-house

4- Leverage a Mobile Commerce Point Solution

This is Forresters’ first entry into an over view of mobile solutions, so there are some top line viewpoints.

I would suggest that there is a 5^th way- Utilize a middle ware company that uses a common coding language (say .NET) to develop and launch the mCommerce needs of your company. SiteMinis is not a singular Point Solution.

The beauty of the SiteMinis approach is that it is entirely flexible to the client needs. Whether a full on total SaaS solution or a migrated mobile web site that resides on the client servers with full access to site coding and deployment, SiteMinis is a full One Stop Mobile Shop.

All SiteMinis enterprise solutions are designed to ensure that mobile data is returned in real time and in harmony with the Internet PC site (no need to manage 2 sites!). Additionally, the SiteMinis delivers a robust User Experience that works on feature phones (say a BlackBerry, etc.) as well as a Smartphone WITH NO DEGRADATION! Check out http://m.homedepot.ca for example.

Additionally, SiteMinis has launched a new DIY platform called CliqLaunch for large retailers and CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) Brands- Like Coke or P&G. CliqLaunch allows for instant Mobile web site creation to harmonize with all the marketing campaigns that a brand delivers.

No longer is mobile an after thought to a marketing campaign! CliqLaunch leverages all the companies mobile or Internet assets and deploys sites in minutes, not weeks with the same robustness as the SiteMinis enterprise solution!

Take a look at the Forrester report for great insight into mCommerce and then take a look at SiteMinis for your full mobile web solution partner.

“One way specifically would be a targeted ad for a holiday purchase quickly – as long as the ad leads to a quick ROI on a mobile Web site or marketing page,” she said.

Ms. Troutman is not affiliated with Victoria’s Secret. She commented based on her expertise on the subject.

 

Victoria’s Secret is running targeted mobile ads within Pandora to promote and educate fashion-savvy consumers about its new products.

The expandable ads promote the company’s new push-up plunge bra. Victoria’s Secret has run mobile ads within Pandora in the past.

Victoria’s Secret did not respond to press inquiries.

Mobile promotion
The expandable ad reads “Heart Breakers Love Lace. Say Hello to Our Flirty New Push-up Plunge Bra.”

When consumers click on the mobile ad they are redirected to a mobile-optimized page where they can browse the new products as well as shop.

Consumers can shop for products

Additionally, consumers can view their shopping bag and offers.

Those that do not want to buy anything via their mobile device can search for the nearest location to browse the products in-store.

Running a targeted mobile ad such as this is a good way to not only drive traffic both in-store and to a marketer’s mobile site, but also helps build a consumer and brand relationship.

In addition, mobile ads are a great way to promote new products.

“When promoting a new product, users aren’t likely to look up Victoria’s Secret specifically to see if there are new promotions, but if they are engaged in a CNN story – as an example – and see the ad at the top of the article while they are reading, if its relevant they will click through to learn more,” Ms. Troutman said.

Mobile past
This is not Victoria’s Secret’s first time running mobile ads.

In September, the company drove consumers in-store via geo-targeted mobile banner ads that promote the company’s new NFL gear.

The company ran the ads within Pandora’s iPhone app. The banner ads show how far away consumers are from the nearest Victoria’s Secret location (see story).

Additionally, Victoria’s Secret gave special offers and exclusive event information via an SMS campaign that built its database and its relationship with consumers (see story).

“Mobile advertising is on a very large ramp up – and we are at the tip of this growth – this year and next everyone should expect to see engagement with mobile ads increasing significantly, as more companies are realizing the importance of mobile and ramping up their strategies to meet the consumer demand,” Ms. Troutman said.

ComScore has data out on the US phone market and Asymco breaks them down, including this great chart at right on the evolution of the US phone platform install base.

It highlights a few key points, some of which are already known, but some of which don’t get talked about enough:

• The Blue Ocean is still HUGE. For all that we (justifiably, more on which below) talk about who among Apple, Google, RIM, Microsoft et al. is winning in smartphones, the biggest opportunity remains the Blue Ocean of getting smartphones in the hands of non-smartphone users. (This is true of the US, but also very true of developing markets where the shift to mobile is enormous.)
• In turn, this means the game is far from over. Given that most of the market is still a blue ocean, the opportunity for newcomers is great. Particularly for platforms with lots of resources and distribution, i.e. the Microsoft-Nokia duo.
• Holy cow, Android! With all these caveats out of the way—the other thing that jumps out is how big and how fast growing Android is. Google’s open-source, broad distribution strategy is textbook disruptive innovation, and at least so far, seems to be working just like it should: i.e., it is eating the market.
• Yes, Apple should be worried; but no, it’s not over, far from it. First of all, Apple is huge and still growing very nicely. Second of all, because the mobile wars are platform wars, smartphone marketshare undercounts iOS marketshare because of the enormous successes of the iPad and iPod Touch, which aren’t phones but are still mobile iOS devices. And thirdly, this chart doesn’t count the two big potential gamechangers Apple has recently introduced: the iPhone 4S, which looks like an excellent device and could be a record-breaking seller; and, less flashy but at least as important, the FREE iPhone 3GS, which allows Apple to have an offering for the bottom of the market and be competitive with Android. How these devices perform could make things look very different three months from now.

In light of that news, here are some current Gartner numbers on mobile phone market shares globally. A couple of observations are that the white label market continues to maintain share, Android is growing in the smartphone arena (happy happy joy joy to all those android APP developers that have to continue to deal with fragments within fragments of an operating system and form factors!). Nokia launches their Windows OS efforts today and don’t count them out!

Apple is making a ton of dough and their iPads are taking a chunk out of the regular notebook market. RIM has had some problems, but their new product is still attractive and NO ONE beats their email interface- Yet!

Just keep your eyes on actual product sales quarter to quarter and don’t believe all the hype that you hear about adoption rates and usage (unless you are comparing them to your own site analytics). Always ask- Who is hitting my site, on what form factor and what are they doing while visiting!

Gartner- ZTE Became Fifth-Largest Mobile Phone Manufacturer and RIM Dropped to No. 6

Worldwide sales of mobile devices to end users totaled 428.7 million units in the second quarter of 2011, a 16.5 percent increase from the second quarter of 2010, according to Gartner, Inc. (see Table 1).

The channel built up stock at the end of the first quarter of 2011 in preparation of possible component shortages following the Japanese earthquake. As a result, sell-in demand slowed in the second quarter of 2011 to 421.1 million units, a 4.4 percent decrease from the previous quarter.

Sales of smartphones were up 74 percent year-on-year and accounted for 25 percent of overall sales in the second quarter of 2011, up from 17 percent in the second quarter of 2010.

“Smartphone sales continued to rise at the expense of feature phones,” said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner. “Consumers in mature markets are choosing entry-level and midrange Android smartphones over feature phones, partly due to carriers’ and manufacturers’ promotions.” However, replacement sales in Western Europe showed signs of fatigue as smartphone sales declined quarter-on-quarter.

Table 1
Worldwide Mobile Device Sales to End Users by Vendor in 2Q11 (Thousands of Units)

Source: Gartner (August 2011)

In smartphones, Nokia’s sales into the channel in the second quarter of 2011 were low. This was partly due to a very competitive market that deflated demand for Symbian, but also to inventory management issues in Europe and China in particular. The channel bought less and worked hard to reduce stock levels, partly by cutting prices on older products. These factors reduced Nokia’s average selling price for smartphones, compared to the first quarter of 2011. “The sales efforts of the channel, combined with Nokia’s greater concentration in retail and distributors’ sales, saw Nokia destock more than 9 million units overall and 5 million smartphones, helping it hold on to its position as the leading smartphone manufacturer by volume,” said Ms. Cozza. “However, we will not see a repeat of this performance in the third quarter of 2011, as Nokia’s channel is pretty lean.”

Samsung achieved strong growth in sales of mobile devices. For example, the Galaxy S II sold well, and this model went on to chalk up 5 million sales by the end of July. A strong performance in the smartphone market helped Samsung increase its market share, to become the third-largest smartphone vendor. However, its overall share dropped year-on-year, and grew only marginally quarter-on-quarter, mainly due to Samsung’s weaker presence in more price-sensitive market segments.

Apple continued to exceed expectations, even though the iPhone 4 will soon be replaced by a new model. Part of its growth came from the 42 new carriers and 15 new countries that it entered in the second quarter of 2011, which brought its total coverage to 100 countries. This expansion caused its inventory to grow a little by the end of the second quarter of 2011, when sales to end users stood at 19.6 million units. In mainland China, Apple is the seventh-largest mobile phone vendor and the third-largest smartphone vendor.

Research In Motion’s (RIM’s) share of the smartphone market declined to 12 percent in the second quarter of 2011, from 19 percent a year ago. Also, the company lost its No. 5 position in the worldwide ranking of mobile device vendors to ZTE. Demand for RIM’s devices in the second quarter was impaired by an ageing portfolio and delays in shipping products. In the coming quarters RIM will have to deal with increased competition to its messaging offering and manage a platform migration from BlackBerry 7 to QNX.

Google and Apple are the obvious winners in the smartphone ecosystem. The combined share of iOS and Android in the smartphone operating system (OS) market doubled to nearly 62 percent in the second quarter of 2011, up from just over 31 percent in the corresponding period of 2010 (see Table 2). Gartner analysts observed that these two OSs have the usability that consumers enjoy, the apps that consumers feel they need, and increasingly a portfolio of services delivered by the platform owner as well.

Table 2
Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System in 2Q11 (Thousands of Units)

Source: Gartner (August 2011)

“We expect manufacturers and distributors to remain cautious about raising their stock levels in the second half of 2011, following the recent uncertainty on the world financial markets,” said Annette Zimmermann, principal research analyst at Gartner. Gartner expects sales of mobile devices to grow around 12 percent in 2011.

A Saks Fifth Avenue executive at the Mobile Shopping Fall conference said retailers and brands need to create a strategic mobile roadmap that aligns with overarching company goals.

“There is a lot of vapor in the mobile space,” Larry Glenn, senior director of app development at Saks Fifth Avenue, New York.

“Very often, [companies] will come to you to help you solve the problem, but their solution is just three HTML5 pages,” he said. “Customers don’t care if it was complex to execute. They care about the end-value.”

Tablet presence
Last week, Saks rolled out its new iPad app.

According to Mr. Glenn, it made sense to roll out an iPad application because many of the company’s customers were accessing its site via their tablets.

In addition to its new iPad app, Saks also has a mobile-optimized site.

“We saw a ton of traffic coming from the iPad,” Mr. Glenn said. “With that we knew that we could provide a much more richer experience with the iPad.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t have an iPhone app [soon] as well,” he said. “The demographic that we have is very skewed towards iOS.”

According to the executive, the company is very tentative on SMS.

“We have to be very careful with the brand and there’s a perception of SMS that it can sometimes be low-end,” Mr. Glenn said. “You also have to think about where does it fit in the purchase cycle.”

Marketing strategy
According to Kelly Shoenefit, manager of online customer experience at Southwest Airlines, marketers need to find a strategy that works for them – whether it is a mobile site, applications, SMS or all of the above.

“We had a mobile Web site pretty early on and all it had was contact and check-in information,” Ms. Shoenefit said. “And as Internet check-in grew, we started seeing the online and mobile numbers grow.

“Functionality was key when creating our mobile site,” she said. “What we’re doing today is looking at what not only will help people transact, but also engage them.”

While the company has a mobile-optimized site and applications, it does not really have an SMS presence.

“We do in an operational sense,” Ms. Shoenefit said. “We have not used SMS in a marketing sense.

“When you think of coupon codes and offers, that’s not something that we’ve done,” she said. “If something changes with your flight, we are sending you an alert, but we are currently not using that in a marketing sense.”

According to Ms. Shoenefit, companies may have different strategies within their individual departments, but communication is key to make sure that everyone is on the same page.

For example, Southwest Airlines is running an NFL campaign that includes QR codes and a SMS call to action.

However, the campaign is not being executed by the company’s mobile department.

“We have different groups that are launching their own campaigns,” Ms. Shoenefit said. “It’s completely separate from our mobile strategy and as long as we are all communication, it’s fine.

“It’s still a cohesive experience for the customers,” she said.

A Typical Day in China

Thought you’d get a good laugh out of this…typical trip..sort of

Since I am not a blogger, I couldn’t put this on any “blog site”.  But it has been such a day in my China travels, I thought I should document it.  Please see below for a good laugh…