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Geolocation is being used to build brand relevancy

Lucy | January 31, 2013

Companies are seeing the technology as an opportunity to communicate more effectively with consumers.

Smartphone shoppers not only provide businesses with revenue through sales, but through geolocation techniques, they are also giving companies important data about where they are at various times of the day and on different days of the week.

This data is being used to help improve the relevancy of the way that businesses communicate with consumers.

By using the information collected through geolocation, they are able to provide far more personalized and relevant information so that the communication between brands and consumers can considerably improve. For instance, when someone checks into a coffee shop on a regular basis in the morning, that data can be collected in order to identify this pattern so that the individual can then be sent a coupon at that time and for that business.

This type of geolocation technique could make a notable impact on mobile marketing effectiveness.

In this way, geolocation can not only help businesses to reach consumers at the times that are most relevant with an offer that they will find most appealing, in order to encourage more spending at the store, but it can benefit the consumer, as well. It means that the advertising and promotions that he or she receives will more closely reflect what is actually wanted.

That said, it is vital that geolocation technology be treated very carefully. There is a thin line between collecting data so that relevant mobile marketing can be produced, and simply inundating a consumer with ads based on everything that he or she has ever done. The chief revenue officer at Foursquare, Steve Rosenblatt, explained that “Relevance and content is what it all boils down to.”

Foursquare is a highly popular geolocation company that experiences approximately five million mobile check-ins every day. Rosenblatt stated that “The more you check in, the more data [we have] and the more relevant information we can send.” The more consumers take part in this type of activity, the better brands will be able to understand what they want so that mobile marketing can be personalized in a highly accurate way.

M-commerce in France skyrockets by 150 percent

Lucy | January 28, 2013

A recent report showed that the French marketplace spiked to reach €1 billion last year.

According to Fevad, a French e-commerce association, the m-commerce market in the country increased to approximately €1 billion last year, which marks an increase of around 150 percent.

This was a considerable rise in the marketplace and was in line with growth seen in other European countries.

In 2011, the m-commerce market had been worth an estimated €400 million. In 2012, however, it increased to the point that it made up almost 2 percent of all sales that were made online. The data in the report did not include pay apps that were used on websites that were taking part in the Fevad’s iCM mobile commerce index.

Those m-commerce figures in the report were exclusively sales made on optimized websites and apps.

During the fourth quarter of last year, the sales in the m-commerce environment were a whopping 2.6 times higher than there were during the same period of time in 2011. Online sales overall in the French market space blasted upward to €45 billion in 2012. That represented a tremendous growth of 19 percent when compared to the year before. It was also an 8 percent cut of the nation’s total retail market sales.

In terms of online payments last year, there was a rise of 28 percent that was recorded in the report for the entire year, and the fourth quarter represented precisely that percentage. This demonstrated a steady growth in that sector of m-commerce, which is very promising for the marketplace, as it means that this is a steady increase and not one that will be seasonal around holiday shopping time.

The average size of m-commerce transactions increased by 24 percent throughout 2012, but it fell by 1 percent to reach €85 within the last quarter of the year. At the same time, during the first eleven months of the year, the number of online shoppers fell by 5 percent. However, while shoppers dwindled slightly, the number of shopping websites in the country grew by 17 percent during that same time, to reach 117,500.