CHANGE MY LOCATION
Business
Examiners
Internet Business Examiner
Most Recent Post
Digression: YouTube video isn't a commercial but could be
California News
Multimedia News
Stores use web 2.0 to lure customers
SEE THE LATEST ON THIS STORY
Related Topics: WASHINGTON
)
Stores use a variety of methods to reach customers over the holidays, including mobile ads.
WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Gone are the days when you could find all of the Black Friday shopping deals in the newspaper. Now stores are taking advertising mobile and only letting customers know about super-secret deals via cell phone.
“Mobile makes a lot of sense for retail. … People are accustomed to interacting on their phone,” said Bill Jones, president of Air2Web, a mobile messaging company that is providing alerts to Wal-Mart customers for the first time Friday and Saturday.
Customers can sign up for Wal-Mart’s alerts on the store Web site or by sending a text message to a code.
Sam’s Club is also using Air2Web’s service, but customers have to sign up in stores, and Office Depot is sending mobile messages with Air2Web for several weeks during the holiday season.
Text messaging isn’t the only advertising vehicle of choice this season. Staples ran an ad on The Weather Channel’s mobile Web site on Wednesday, the store’s first mobile ad.
As the customer “continues to be mobile” and the amount of information that can be accessed on a mobile phone increases, mobile ads will become a “more important piece of the marketing mix,” said Peter Scala, executive vice president of merchandising for Staples.
Even malls are jumping on the technology bandwagon.
Westfield shopping centers are relying less on direct mail and advertising. The chain is launching an effort to collect customers’ email addresses to send them notices with promotions and mall-wide and individual store sale announcements, according to Debbie Young, marketing director at the Westfield Wheaton. It has also partnered with NearbyNow.com, a site that provides a searchable database of inventory in a mall’s stores. Westfield started using NearbyNow in the summer.
“People do so much on the computer now, it makes sense to have all that information at your fingertips,” Young said.
The malls provided the site with a list of stores, and NearbyNow added the stores’ inventory. When customers search for an item, a list of stores that carry that item, along with notices about sales and links to coupons appears.
The site also includes information about where to park, the closest entrance to the store, and a map of the store’s location in the mall.
Comments from Examiner Readers
9:21 AM MST on Tue., Feb. 12, 2008 re: "Holidays fail to boost home sales"
Report as inappropriate
11:18 AM MST on Mon., Dec. 24, 2007
re: "It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world at region's malls"
Report as inappropriate
6:17 AM MST on Mon., Dec. 24, 2007
re: "Retailers find consumers are saving, not spending, this holiday season"
Report as inappropriate
9:23 PM MST on Tue., Dec. 18, 2007
re: "FedEx workers report early to ease heaviest day"
Report as inappropriate
Examiner Reader said:
If housing prices are down then many potential sellers will wait. Even when the housing market was normal a few years back it was not at the high seen with the zero interest deferred loans that have added to the problem. Actually it is a good time to buy.
113 agree | 90 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
Examiner Reader said:
Why didn't they mention White Marsh Mall?
161 agree | 132 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
Examiner Reader said:
I no longer go to the stores for Christmas shopping but do what many people of intelligence are now doing and that is taking small jewelry gift boxes, putting cash in them, and wrapping them up with Christmas paper and bows and ribbons, thus allowing the recipients to purchase after the holidays what they truly want and to spend it how and when they wish. I do this because the stores no longer have "Merry Christmas" signs, no longer play Christmas Carols, etc. And frankly the stores use Christmas to unload cheap and inferior merchandise that they have been unable to sell during the previous months.
147 agree | 150 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
Examiner Reader said:
It's FedEx "courier", NOT FedEx "carrier".
179 agree | 162 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree