Shop from the Department Store
If I asked you where you could go online today and buy movie tickets, mobile games, the latest hits by Beyonce, a comic, a movie, a school text book, a travelers guide, a sales management application, a PDA solution, a mobile wallet… what would you say? I bet you’d name half a dozen sites that might be relevant, and then send me off to spend endless hours meandering around the Internet.
What if I told you could find it all in one place and that place could be either the Internet or the mobile phone?
I believe the key to online and mobile shopping success giving customers the products they want, and delivering it to them in the right packaging, just the way the customer wants them - High quality, low cost, great service, fast and pretty packaging.
Some think today’s mobile market to be the new dotcom. We’re already seeing some mobile service provider companies going down, mobile telcos having a hard time, specialist ring tone folding, and games stores going the same way. But is this a sign mirroring the dotcom experience or an historical reflection of bricks and mortar world?
I’d argue the latter. Sure, lots of companies thought they’d cash in on the Ringtones. But lots of problems to success are in the way; extensive competition, an incredible amount of free stuff, poor quality, the accessibility and popularity of P2P and the crappy amount of standard memory in vendor supplied phones.
But another major reason is specialization. That’s where the mobile world can mirror lessons learnt in the real world. It makes sense that online shoppers want the convenience of being able to buy all their needs from one website. Why should I go through the agony of logging in to several different sites when I can go to one and get all the information, product or service I want?
Department stores and malls have replaced the local corner store in the real world, and in the same way stores such as http://www.walmart.com/ and http://www.thecellcity.com/ are replacing the specialist stores on the internet. Why go to a specialist music store if I can get the same content at sites where I can also download games, travel, sport, business products? It makes sense to go for more convenience and less time wastage.
And it will be the same in the mobile world. According to a slew of industry experts, the number of people accessing the web via the mobile phone will outnumber those who access from the desktop within 2 years. If that is so, can we expect those users to have the same behavior as the internet users of today? We think so. At least there will be a lot of similarities.
People will want the convenience of being able to access information when they want it. They want to buy tickets, book flights, send email, all the common stuff that is currently done on the Internet today.
What gets in the way of doing this today is a lack of user education. But as soon as the kids master the mobile platform (and the telco drop their data transfer charges), the rest will be history.
Given the accessibility of GPRS, the capability and pre-configuration for web access of most new phones regardless of whether they are 3G smartphones or not, it’s not hard to imagine that the mobile phone could be the new way to shop.
And if that’s the case, mobile department stores will become the premier shopping sites of the future. Of course before that happens, there’s lots that need to be done. Come visit us at www.thecellcity.com (just type it into the browser on your mobile phone), if want a glimpse of the future of shopping online.
Products, applications, services, 17 departments, over 100 sections and over a million applications for any kind of mobile phone or PDA device… and we’re accessible over the browser on your mobile phone. How cool is that!
What if I told you could find it all in one place and that place could be either the Internet or the mobile phone?
I believe the key to online and mobile shopping success giving customers the products they want, and delivering it to them in the right packaging, just the way the customer wants them - High quality, low cost, great service, fast and pretty packaging.
Some think today’s mobile market to be the new dotcom. We’re already seeing some mobile service provider companies going down, mobile telcos having a hard time, specialist ring tone folding, and games stores going the same way. But is this a sign mirroring the dotcom experience or an historical reflection of bricks and mortar world?
I’d argue the latter. Sure, lots of companies thought they’d cash in on the Ringtones. But lots of problems to success are in the way; extensive competition, an incredible amount of free stuff, poor quality, the accessibility and popularity of P2P and the crappy amount of standard memory in vendor supplied phones.
But another major reason is specialization. That’s where the mobile world can mirror lessons learnt in the real world. It makes sense that online shoppers want the convenience of being able to buy all their needs from one website. Why should I go through the agony of logging in to several different sites when I can go to one and get all the information, product or service I want?
Department stores and malls have replaced the local corner store in the real world, and in the same way stores such as http://www.walmart.com/ and http://www.thecellcity.com/ are replacing the specialist stores on the internet. Why go to a specialist music store if I can get the same content at sites where I can also download games, travel, sport, business products? It makes sense to go for more convenience and less time wastage.
And it will be the same in the mobile world. According to a slew of industry experts, the number of people accessing the web via the mobile phone will outnumber those who access from the desktop within 2 years. If that is so, can we expect those users to have the same behavior as the internet users of today? We think so. At least there will be a lot of similarities.
People will want the convenience of being able to access information when they want it. They want to buy tickets, book flights, send email, all the common stuff that is currently done on the Internet today.
What gets in the way of doing this today is a lack of user education. But as soon as the kids master the mobile platform (and the telco drop their data transfer charges), the rest will be history.
Given the accessibility of GPRS, the capability and pre-configuration for web access of most new phones regardless of whether they are 3G smartphones or not, it’s not hard to imagine that the mobile phone could be the new way to shop.
And if that’s the case, mobile department stores will become the premier shopping sites of the future. Of course before that happens, there’s lots that need to be done. Come visit us at www.thecellcity.com (just type it into the browser on your mobile phone), if want a glimpse of the future of shopping online.
Products, applications, services, 17 departments, over 100 sections and over a million applications for any kind of mobile phone or PDA device… and we’re accessible over the browser on your mobile phone. How cool is that!
posted by Dannie @ 6:30 PM
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