THE RISE OF THE MOBILE SHOPPER

Mobile is a complete game changer that alters consumer shopping behavior like nothing before it. With mobile, people no longer go shopping; they are shopping. With mobile, the consumer is more, well, mobile, on the go, always connected, and absorbing information in bite-sized pieces. Mobile shoppers are using their phones and tablets at multiple stages of shopping, before, all the way through, and after the purchase transaction, providing new challenges and opportunities for retailers to influence consumer decision making along the way.

Mobile shopping is different for several reasons. First, it is continuous. Unlike traditional non-mobile shopping, the mobile buying process can happen all the time. Consumers no longer have to be at a physical store or sitting at a computer. They can be researching a purchase while watching TV, on a bus or train, or walking down the street. Mobile shopping is also different because location or proximity to sellers and products can be determined. Someone out and about can, with one or two taps, find the location of something they desire or need based on where they are at the moment. The scope of mobile is also massive. By 2016, the number of mobile Web-connected devices should eclipse the number of people on earth, according to the well-known Cisco Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast. And lastly, mobile shopping is personal, since the device itself is highly personal and communications through the device are inherently one-to-one, whether by voice, text, pictures, or videos.

Indeed, shopping and buying behaviors are being totally transformed by the ability to buy anything at any time from any place. At physical stores, more than half (58 percent) of consumers who own a smartphone have used it for store-related shopping. And more than half (55 percent) of smartphone shoppers have also used their mobile device to check prices as they shop. At the end of 2014, the number of consumers purchasing physical goods remotely from their handsets is expected to reach 580 million. No matter how big the impact mobile is having on shopping behavior, it is only going to get bigger.

THE MOBILE RIPPLE

It is not only physical retail stores of all shapes and sizes that will be impacted. All brands and sellers of products and services will be affected. The implications are significant, since there can be an effect throughout the shopping process that I call the mobile ripple. For example, when more ticket sales occur through smartphones and tablets, the mobile ripple is how the sales process affects both the number of ticketing agents needed to sell tickets at a physical event and the printing of tickets as more consumers show codes and receipts on their smartphones as they check in. This is already common at airline security checkpoints, where boarding passes are displayed on smartphones.

The number of tickets delivered to mobile phones worldwide is expected to reach 23 billion by 2016 as mobile users adopt mobile tickets as part of their mobile shopping behavior, according to Juniper Research. These include tickets for sporting events, travel, and entertainment events. By that time, NFC (near field communication) mobile ticket sales will account for more than half of mobile ticket revenue, according to the study, which shows one in eight users in Western Europe using their phones as a contactless metro payment ticket.

NBC Universal's Fandango, which sells movie tickets online, already sells more than a third of its movie tickets via mobile devices, and the app has been downloaded more than 25 million times. The mobile ripple over time can mean fewer theater salespeople along with mobile check-in to get into the show. Airlines are following suit, though they didn't start that way. Initially, many airline mobile apps told you simply when your flight would ideally depart and arrive, and some would let you know if your baggage made the same plane you did. Sell you a ticket? Not so much. But by 2015, 89 percent of airlines plan to be selling tickets via mobile, according to a survey of IT trends in the airline industry by the technology firm SITA, originally known as Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques. Notably, United Airlines was early in selling tickets via mobile; its mobile efforts are discussed later in the book. The travel website Expedia expects up to half its U.S. hotel bookings to come from mobile in the near future.

THE MOBILE SHOPPING LIFE CYCLE

The traditional sales funnel is dead. It has been replaced by what I call the Mobile Shopping Life Cycle, comprising six specific moments when marketers have the opportunity to impact mobile consumer behavior and purchase decisions. Marketing efforts guided by the traditional sales funnel don't work with mobile because the entire shopping and buying process is iterative rather than serial. In other words, in the old sales funnel, the shopper moved one step at a time toward the purchase and marketers targeted them as they moved closer to making the purchase. With mobile, the process is not in such an organized sequence. The steps of the mobile buying process are happening all the time. But, most importantly, the mobile shopper (m-shopper) can be highly influenced during the six distinct moments when they are using their mobile devices on the go. The six stages of the mobile shopping cycle are influence points. Once marketers understand these six mobile influence points, they can more effectively target information and marketing messages to reach and influence consumers during the Mobile Shopping Life Cycle.

One of the oldest known traditional buying concepts lays out the traditional stages of the selling process. Known as AIDA, which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action, the concept provides a way to think about how to interact with customers in the process of a sale. Marketers have to get the attention of the customer before even thinking of convincing him of anything. Then they have to increase interest, perhaps by clearly identifying the product benefits they are tryingto sell. Increasing the desire for the product follows by showing how the product may match or satisfy a customer's needs. The last step involves getting the customer to take action, resulting in the sale.

Over time, in the evolution of what became known as the sales funnel or the traditional sales funnel, some of the stages were more defined and refined. They became: awareness, familiarity, consideration, purchase, and loyalty — they still were used as a guideline in how to sway consumers at various stages on the path to purchase. Until recently, consumers were relatively stationary and easy to reach with marketing messages via a centralized, broadcast model. Marketers could reach millions of...