Mobile Shopping: TheFind Mobile App – Smarter Shopping Wherever You Might Be
January 11th, 2011 by Ramneek Bhasin
On Saturday, December 11th, 2010, as the holiday rush was in full swing, were your products showcased in the $24M worth of items scanned or searched for, on TheFind Mobile? Do you know if your items were competitively priced and part of the extra $1.2M saved by consumers who used TheFind? This past shopping season, we estimated that $1 billion worth of products were scanned or searched for on TheFind mobile alone.
According to a survey conducted by Gartner in October, 42% of shoppers using smartphones looked for directions to nearby stores; 33% compared prices or looked for discounts/coupons. And by year-end 2011, most analysts expect 50% of the phones sold in the US will be smartphones (with a huge percentage being iPhones or Android phones).
What You Can Do
Many of TheFind’s merchant partners in the Merchant Center are already working to ensure that we can present their catalogs in the most mobile-friendly way. There is precious little real estate on smartphones and, unlike with web browsing, the shopper is generally on a tighter schedule. Our relevancy algorithms can increase your visibility on both our mobile and web search if you make sure to provide us with the following:
● A full catalog.
● Up-to-date feeds with current prices, tax and shipping information.
● Product coupons and offers.
● Comprehensive and accurate UPC codes in your feeds (super important). If UPC codes are not available, include MPN or other part numbers for enhanced visibility.
● An updated UpFront Merchant profile, making sure we know about acceptance of any non-credit card checkout options (e.g. PayPal, Google Checkout or Amazon Payments) to help mobile users transact more easily. Remember – users have very little patience.
● Current store addresses and phone numbers (if you have brick-and-mortar stores).
● Plus, implement mobile CSS and an alternative payment method, such as PayPal, Google Checkout or Amazon Payments.