Target’s Mobile Mastermind Speaks: Engagement Equals Payments

Let’s start with the good news for the payments sector from Thursday’s Mcommerce Summit: consumers are increasingly aware of and actively using retailers’ mobile sites and apps. At the event, hosted by Mobile Commerce Daily, Arc Worldwide digital strategy manager Nick Fotis revealed 39.1 percent of mobile users do at least some form of shopping on their devices. Of these shoppers, 40 percent earn a salary of at least $75,000. In addition, 84 percent of mobile retail features have a transactional payment system integrated, according to FitforCommerce Senior Consultant Jill Dvorak.

Now for the bad news: these shoppers aren’t necessarily using retailers’ mobile channels for payments. At least not directly.

Dan Fine, dubbed Target’s mobile mastermind by One Media Group CEO Stacey Larson, acknowledged that driving payments through handsets was not at the forefront of the company’s mCommerce strategy. Since Target got into mobile about two years ago, Fine said “useful” features that enable product research and user engagement have been driving the store’s business development plan for mobile. This approach, Fine explained, was crafted in response to what Target’s customers (or guests, as is the company preferred term) have shown to be most interested in using mobile device for as far as retail.

“It’s about how to get the largest share of her wallet, no matter how or where she wants to buy,” said Fine.

Regardless of whether the actual purchase took place in-store, online or through a handset, as long as mobile played some sort of role in the process, Fine said he considered the company’s mCommerce approach to be on track. He called mobile “the ultimate connector,” describing how handsets allow guests to interact with Target whether making a sandwich in the kitchen, shopping on a computer or in one of the company’s 1,700 brick-and-mortar stores.

In order to develop an mCommerce strategy that would “stand the test of time,” Fine encouraged conference attendees to focus on guest experience rather than technology.

“Technology changes rapidly over time, and adoption changes over time,” he explained. “Who knows what this landscape will look like two years from now?”

Another merchant “juicing” everything possible out of the ripe mobile market is Sunkist. Director of retail marketing Julie DeWolf, like Fine, also stated that payments was not the primary focus of the company’s mobile strategy.

“You don’t need to touch and feel when buying a TV, but with produce, there’s definitively more of an interactive experience,” she said, calling the process of purchasing fruit much more “tactile” than with other products. “Until someone figures out how to do it correctly, we’re not going to be there in the near future.”

At this time, DeWolf explained that Sunkist is employing mobile to foster brand awareness, engagement and loyalty. One method the company is using is to add prompts on products that encourage users to send a text message to learn more information about a specific item.

Looking ahead, especially for those seeking to ignite mPayments in the retail sector, DeWolf, among merchants presenting at the summit, encouraged simplicity above all else in the designing a checkout process. Other consultants and analysts suggested that retailers integrate stored wallet features or functionalities that recalled payment information for consumers’ eCommerce accounts in order to encourage shoppers to make purchases directly over handsets.

Finally, payments professionals can take heart that merchants are at least excited about the possibility of a higher percentage of their entire payments pie coming from mobile. Tim Engle III, senior vice president of strategy for Jewelry Television, stated enthusiastically that he expects 6 percent of the company’s total sales to come from mobile next year.

Here are some other interesting takeaways from merchants who spoke at the conference:

– eBay’s iPhone app has recorded more than 18 million downloads; more than 9 million downloads for free scanning app RedLaser.

– For the Home Shopping Network, mobile is the fastest growing channel, according to director of technology Ed Deutscher. The TV channel is focused on creating mobile and tablet products that foster personalized shopping experiences that allow customers to consume content (such as rich media videos) while simultaneously browsing products.  

– Another subscriber to the “it doesn’t matter where the purchase was made as long as mobile played a role” mantra is Jamie Miller of Carrabba’s Italian Grill. The brand marketing manager for this national chain discussed the effectiveness of text-messaged coupons in driving restaurant visits. One particular campaign Carrabba’s tried with Florida restaurants had a 68 percent redemption rate. Miller mused the coupon’s high success rate could be attributed to both the fact it had a short shelf life, as well as that mobile users are better conditioned to respond immediately to offers.