Retailers Need to Look at Smartphone-Based Location Technologies, Says Report
Retailers should investigate opportunities and threats posed by smartphone indoor location technologies “or run the risk of losing control of the mobile experience in their stores,” said an ABI Research report Thursday. Companies including Apple, Baidu and Google plan to…
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release smartphone-based indoor location technologies to developers within the next year, while location deployments in retail stores have largely been focused on infrastructure-based technologies, it said. Retailers have largely ignored the opportunities offered by mobile devices and are “in danger of repeating the mistakes they made with eCommerce,” said analyst Patrick Connolly. “The days of loyalty cards and paper coupons are ending and retailers do not seem ready,” said Connolly, saying retailers need to “take control” of digitization in their stores and put technologies like indoor location to work. Handset-based indoor location technologies allow retailers to measure marketing campaign performance, streamline in-store processes, create new advertising revenue streams, remove shopping friction and create “shock and awe” moments,” he said. Indoor location technology also lets retailers engage with more customers, said ABI. Initiatives like Google Nearby eliminate the need for in-store apps, but as those tools become available to all developers, the market will “rapidly embrace” the technology, creating opportunities for third parties to deploy location technologies in any retail store, Connolly said. He envisioned a third-party shopping app with an accurate, detailed map of a shopping outlet that could direct store offers and ads to individual customers, something that could “become a reality very soon.”