AIRTAG Integrates With eBay’s Magento For mShopping Push

More and more consumers are demanding a multi-channel shopping experience from their favorite retailers. AIRTAG is taking a big step towards making their desires a reality today, partnering its mCommerce platform with eBay’s Magento eCommerce tool.

Through its AIRSHOP tool, AIRTAG’s Magento integration means that retailers can manage both an eCommerce and mCommerce site from a single database, rather than needing to support and maintain two separate entities. Championing its “plug & play” capabilities, AIRTAG is betting heavily on the future of mCommerce moving forward, and claims that it’s the best medium through which businesses can attract and retain loyal customers.

Why did AIRTAG choose to integrate with Magento, and how can retailers looking to make the mobile leap benefit from the deal? PYMNTS.com spoke with Jérémie Leroyer, founder and CEO at AIRTAG, to find out.

PYMNTS.com: What does your integration with Magento mean for AIRSHOP as a payments tool? What are the benefits of working with Magento?

Jérémie Leroyer: This integration means that more retailers, who have Magento eCommerce sites will be able to offer shoppers a mobile shopping app that supports mobile optimized multiple payment schemes; like online credit cards, 1 click, PayPal, PayPal Here, within a PCI compliant environment.

Because Shopping via mobile phone on an eCommerce site is not as optimal as a mobile or web app; a lot of retailers right now are interested in transitioning to mobile commerce so that their customers can more efficiently order & pay by mobile phone.

Give us a better idea of exactly what AIRSHOP does and why this integration makes sense.

AIRSHOP is a plug & play platform for advanced mobile ordering and payments, including a large selection of customization modules such as; geolocation, couponing, loyalty, fast ordering etc. and various payment schemes support so retailers can customize their offering and add more value to the user experience. This integration really makes sense right now because a lot of retailers are starting to approach us with interest in developing a mobile app, so we created a way that this can be done as easy as possible.

Tell us how this “eases the transition” for retailers looking to move towards digital commerce. Why is a simple transition important?

This eases transition, because we have developed a plug & play platform, which means that we are connected directly to the Magento API’s to get the retailers existing product and customer databases. Meaning that through AIRSHOP, retailers using Magento; only need one database for both their eCommerce site and mCommerce (app) rather than needing to create and manage two or start the whole process from scratch.

A simple transition to mobile commerce is important, because retailers who have already invested a lot of time and money into a high quality eCommerce site, do not want to start the process from scratch. They want something that leverages something that they already have. Additionally, starting from scratch could take several months or longer and be a lot more expensive.

How do you see mobile commerce evolving over the coming years? Do you feel as though retailers are going to need a mobile presence to stay relevant?

We see mobile commerce as becoming an increasingly important ordering and payment channel. The customer segments are divided right now so omni-channel is most important, being on all platforms in a cohesive way. But, increasingly more customers are wanting mobile, so we’d say that in the next couple of years mobile will become the most important of all channels for any kind of retailer.

We are already finding that when we develop both an eCommerce and mobile commerce platform for a retailer, mCommerce is more important in several ways because users become re-users and continue to use the platform, the order processing volumes are higher, it gives the retailer more visibility and competitiveness and it gives retailers an opportunity to create real value for end users, like no other channel can.

Finally, AIRTAG has made some big announcements since we last spoke. How do you see AIRTAG progressing as a company, and how does the Magento integration fit into that vision?

It has been an exciting time for AIRTAG and we are continually growing. Right now, a lot of retailers are trying out and getting a taste of mobile, and starting their first initiatives. But, we really think there is going to be a lot of change, so we see ourselves in the future gaining partnerships that a lot of the time, require us to leverage something that already exists for a retailer, so being adaptable and the ability to “plug & play” we feel is a really strong part of our value proposition.

Magento fits into this vision, because a lot of retailers using their platform are interested in moving to deliver a mobile shopping app. We saw this need and wanted to offer something that is really relevant to the challenges that retailers are facing in transitioning to mobile commerce. As retailers currently using Magento continue to see the importance of Mobile Commerce, we hope that they will realize that it is not as complex and expensive task as they think and that our AIRSHOP solution can really help.