Retail group to explore use of mobile sales tools

It’s lunchtime and you’re driving by your favorite Mexican restaurant when your smartphone starts to fill up with texts and tweets about tacos. Coincidence?
Not if restaurants and retailers embrace new mobile communications technology the way many experts say they should and inevitably will.
“I have been doing mobile for more than 15 years and was hoping it would become the must-have it has with people walking around with devices and [where] privacy is not a concern,” said Joel Evans, Providence-based vice president of application development for technology company Mobiquity Inc. “People now are willing to give up their location for more personalized service.”
For brick-and-mortar businesses that have seen some of their sales migrate to the Internet over the last 20 years, figuring out how the proliferation in mobile devices and social media usage will reshape the landscape has become a major challenge.
That’s why the Rhode Island and Connecticut chapters of the International Council of Shopping Centers are gathering this month in Providence to discuss how businesses can become winners in the mobile and social media revolution.
“Part of this is finding out what it means for us,” said David Steinberg, manager of leasing at Ocean State Job Lot and co-chair of the ICSC Rhode Island chapter’s Next Generation Planning Committee. “We all have these printed fliers. Now there are people walking around with site plans on iPads. Traditionally, it has been, ‘Let me see your Facebook page.’ That’s great, but there is also an undercurrent of how you will use it in day-to-day business.”
In addition to Evans, speakers at the Nov. 17 event, called “There’s an App for that,” will include Lloyd Sugarman, senior vice president of Johnny Rockets restaurants, Paul Conforti, managing partner of Encore Hospitality, and Robert Mesite, owner of a Sonic restaurant in Wallingford, Conn.
While new social media and mobile tools are primarily associated with retailers themselves, Steinberg said the changes being brought about by technology are significant enough to make the subject relevant to almost anyone.
Nowhere does change appear to be coming more rapidly than the mobile-technology world, where smartphones have gone from exclusive gadgets to everyday accessories in the space of a few years. And as so-called “smart” devices have become more common, their owners appear to have become more comfortable with the fact that they provide a greater amount of personal information about them than a conventional phone or computer, including the ability to track the owner’s physical location.
According to Evans, this is where opportunities exist for businesses ready to use the data to target valuable customers and build brand loyalty by personalizing their experience.
Examples could include not only sending advertising to a loyal customer when they are in the area, but storing information about preferences and past purchases that lead customers to purchases they may not have made otherwise.
Without building a fast-food-style drive-through, food or other merchandise could be delivered right to customers in their cars, which could be located when they arrive through the smartphone, which would also be used to pay.
“The whole concept of waiting in line is broken,” Evans said.
Central to making these concepts work is having customers who don’t think twice about ordering and paying for products with their phone.
According to Evans, this problem of trust is becoming less and less of an issue.
He pointed to an experiment in which someone allowed the public to take a photo of his Starbucks card and use the image to buy coffee at stores everywhere.
“I would say it is a generational thing,” Evans said. “Basically people are saying, ‘I will give you my information if there is something in it for me.’ Groupon and the things that come in with mobile devices have broken that down.”
Another recent technological change that has made the use of mobile technology more appealing to businesses is how little businesses now have to invest in hardware and software to set something up.
If retailers don’t actively engage customers with mobile technology, Evans said smartphones may come back to bite them.
The solution, he said, was to reward customers who visit a store and provide incentives to buy there instead of leaving and heading online.
The Next Generation event, at Dave & Busters in Providence Place mall, is the first to be jointly held with the Connecticut chapter. Steinberg expects it to break new ground.
“One thing I feel good about this team is that they have some cutting-edge ideas,” Steinberg said. •