1. Social is a paradigm shift

Thanks to the emergence of digital media channels, the way people shop is fundamentally and irreversibly different from a few years ago. We’ve moved on from brand-controlled messages to a world of empowered consumers in a channel-agnostic marketplace.

This brings with it new rules and metrics for acquiring, retaining and interacting with customers.

The power of selling has been with the seller because of the broadcast model and advertising culture. Over the last few years, technology has changed. The customer is now exercising this power.

Search is still a critical mechanism for the web, but time spent on search is up just 1%, compared to a 50% increase in time spent on social networks.”

To take advantage of this, brands must ensure there is a consistent customer experience across online, instore and mobile channels, and social must be a part of every aspect of the business.

2. Social data reveals the why behind the buy

Opinions from friends are still the most trusted source for purchasing decisions – 90% of consumers now trust peer recommendations compared to 14% that rely on advertising.

With the growth of social, consumer conversations are now available online giving businesses access to new data and an opportunity to align more closely to the needs of customers.

Listening to people in social media is fantastic because the comment is made at the moment of high engagement. What you learn through this kind of medium cannot be gathered through research.”

Understanding trends in consumer data allows businesses to become more customer-centric, which is proven to drive sales, decrease returns and support costs, inspire product innovation, and power effective marketing.

3. Becoming customer-centric demands cultural and organisational transformation

Social media brings companies closer to their customers; the real people who shop for, buy, and use their products and services.

The shift in power from broadcast to fragmented media, from brand to consumer, from paid media to earned media, collectively requires a new focus for businesses: an obsessive devotion to understanding and delighting customers.

This calls for an organisation-wide cultural shift at every level.

See the full report by Bazaarvoice

Lydia Dishman wrote an article for Forbes that describes the new app, which is summarized below.

In April, Walmart bought Kosmix, a social media start-up focused on e-commerce for $300 million. The new firm joined Silicon Valley-based @WalmartLabs division to work on building the retail giant’s online shopping experience.

One result of the collaboration are apps for the iPhone and iPad. They are designed to simplify weekly shopping trips for grocery staples, and should be launched by Black Friday.

The National Retail Federation estimates over 52 percent of smartphone users will use their devices for holiday shopping. There’s been significant mobile adoption among the estimated 140 million customers who walk through Walmart stores every week.

One feature of the app is smart shopping lists, which allows customers to add items either by scanning a barcode on a product they already have or by speaking or typing the name of the item. They’ll also be able to access product details, customer reviews, and local availability. A budgeting tool calculates the total price of the list as items are added and calls up manufacturer’s coupons where available.

See the original article at: http://onforb.es/ssv90Y

Mashable published the infographic below to present JiWire’s findings.

In general, I think retailers should focus resources on their mobile web site rather than apps, unless they are number 1 or number 2 in their category. There are a number of reasons for this. One is the limited range of activities for which users prefer apps over mobile web sites. initiatives.

In a recent eMarketer survey, participants indicated they prefer a mobile app in only three categories: social networking, music and games. Otherwise, they prefer to use mobile websites.

The top one or two brands will capture enough attention to make it into the app lineup, while the rest will fight for awareness. This sounds, perhaps, like forfeiting or giving up the fight competitive advantage, but it’s really deciding how to use scarce resources to meet the greatest number of customers’ needs. For an app to get noticed, downloaded, and used will cost a significant amount of marketing resources, while mobile SEO follows similar principles to standard e-commerce SEO. “App fatigue” will quash the aspirations of the second-movers.

Mobile web sites can leverage patterns and standards used in the primary e-commerce site, while apps require special development. The capabilities of the different platforms are becoming less distinct with HTML 5. Also, mobile web sites can be viewed on all devices, but apps must be developed specifically for different platforms, i.e. one for iPhone, one for Android, etc. Very costly, particularly when integrated with real-time location-based inventory.

In a recent Mobile App Check survey (3,500 males and 3,500 females, 18 years and older), the top apps were discovered in terms of usage. Only 10 apps are used per person on a regular basis. Only 30 apps on average are on a device. The top apps are Facebook, Google Maps, Weather, Pandora, Twitter, and some entertainment apps. Retailers have not yet penetrated the top levels in the app-osphere.

Instead of using resources to develop an app that only can be used on certain devices, and which is in danger of not being used at all, I recommend that retailers focus on creating a mobile web site that is specifically designed to accommodate customers in the way they shop that particular retailer, taking into account channel-switching behaviors for added convenience. They should also focus on SEO to ensure the site is found. Paid search and affiliate shopping placement should ensure that when customers are driving around, or better, are standing in the aisles of competitors, that the retailer’s offering can easily be accessed with little effort. Location-based services like check-in for deals and QR codes for added in-store information will boost mobile-enabled in-store conversion rates.

Of course, the above considerations pertain to “either – or” optimization of resource decisions. Having a branded app is also a vehicle for brand voice (and self-respect?) that could outweigh pedestrian concerns like traffic and conversion. How could a retailer at our stature and history NOT be worthy of an iPad app? What customer utility is served by Pottery Barn’s catalog viewer app, or Gap’s 1969 Stream? Only later will executives question the business owner and design lead, asking: “Why is our app performing so poorly? It’s a beautiful design but customers have not adopted it.” Kind of like e-commerce sites in the 1990′s. Well, there’s something to be said for consistency.

Then how could Google miss that? Don’t they have the purchase processes for all product categories and user types on earth ready for modeling in their search data? Well, the Nexus was down, but not out. This tim around, the Google Nexus S is available through premier electronics retailer Best Buy. So people can go in, touch it, look at it, get a feeling for the form factor (although it is probably a plastic brick version of the real phone. If this would have been possible with the Nexus, I probably would have one, because I’m interested to see how a company with search running through their veins does mobile.

The Nexus S will run Android 2.3 (dubbed Gingerbread). It will have a 1 GHz Cortex A8 processor, 16GB of flash memory, and front- and rear-facing cameras. The design is based on the Samsung Galaxy S. The price with a two-year T-Mobile service plan will be $199; without contract, $529.99.

Will I buy one? Probably not, because I am really enjoying my current strategy of very cheap phone that does voice really well, with NO CONTRACT, and a 3G iPad to use for all mobile internet tasks and reading. Like it a lot. But I’m happy to see that a basic tenet of e-commerce research is something even the largest companies in the world must learn: Use behavior modeling to fully understand the purchase experience for a category of merchandise, design digital experiences to fit in with the purchase process as precisely as possible, and let online do what online does best.

Tom Nealon, group executive vice president for JCPenney, explained in an understated way: “With over 1.3 million friends and growing, our Facebook page remains a vital tool for engaging our customers as they explore and share the JCPenney brand.”

The JC Penney Facebook page has a “shop” tab that lets customers browse various departments and place selections in a shopping bag as they do on JCPenney.com. The Share button posts a purchase or liked item on the customer’s Facebook wall.

JCPenney’s fully functional f-commerce store is a major step toward the inverted mall concept (See “What is f-commerce” article at http://tinyurl.com/2ufullq), which takes retail to where customers are already gathered in socially engaging environments, rather than building a centralized retail outlet that people come to when they have shopping needs. With Facebook there are obviously privacy concerns, but JCPenney has committed resources in a bold step that many of its competitors are likely to follow. With 500 million users, Facebook retailing is not exactly a shot in the dark.

It’s interesting that JCPenney chose Usablenet to do the deployment. Usablenet has been known primarily for mobile e-commerce site scrapes. It makes sense, and is fully in line with what I believe will be the 2011 mantra: “Social, mobile, local.” JCPenney has a chance to explore the advantages of this formula earlier than its competitors, especially if Usablenet helps bump up the mobile and local components.