M commerce, Ecommerce, and Retail: Merging as One

You’ll learn throughout this book about your newest customer: the “omnipresent
customer,” the one who shops multiple channels to perform a
single transaction.
Forrester Research reports that 25 percent of shoppers use a mobile phone
while in a store to competitively price-shop an item. That means your
item on the shelf is now being considered with many others just like
it—and maybe at a better price—on the customer’s mobile phone. One
prominent UK retailer estimates it loses 12 percent of its in-store sales to
shoppers who buy elsewhere on mobile websites while in the store.
Further, new research by Nielsen and Yahoo found that 9 out of 10 mobile
website users have logged on while in a store, and just over half of all
in-store mobile research has led to a purchase. That means mobile shoppers
accessing their smartphones while in a store are busy doing mobile
website price comparisons, researching product and service reviews, and
text  friends for gift ideas, among other buying decisions.

For you, the store owner who also has a mobile website or app, this mobile
consumer behavior gives you an expanded opportunity to market and
sell directly to your visitors. According to research from Insight Express, up
to 35 percent of smartphone users look for a store coupon pushed to their
phone while another 33 percent search product inventory when in a store.
You can focus the design of your new mobile website or app to help in store
shoppers with more immediate information about the store for their
per-shopping tasks, send real-time e-coupons, text them special deals, or
even provide functions like scanning a bar code to get a price.
Therefore, your challenge as a marketer today adds up in this new sales
equation: M Commerce plus eCommerce plus retail equals one simultaneous
shopping experience for your prospective customer.