Author: Rebecca

Passengers flying Alaska Airlines will now be able to use these new services at the L.A. International Airport

Travelers are already using mobile commerce based kiosks to be able to check in through certain airlines at the Los Angeles International Airport, but these services are about to start expanding quite significantly over the next three years, starting with Alaska Airlines.

Both airports and airlines are expected to begin making considerable investments into m-commerce.

A new survey has shown that mobile commerce kiosks are expected to take off at many different airports and through a range of airlines. In fact, the survey showed that almost 90 percent of airports intend to make an investment into this type of mobile technology within the upcoming three years. This will be good news for tech savvy travelers who are rapidly growing in numbers.

These kiosks use mobile commerce technology to allow a passenger to check in using a smartphone.

Using this mobile technology, some of the largest airports in the world are giving travelers a way to obtain a boarding pass without having to check in with a gate agent. A recent survey conducted by SITA, a multinational technology firm, has shown that these kiosks are currently serving about 2.4 billion passengers every year. According to the chief exec at SITA, Francesco Violante, “This is the age of the connected traveler with nearly all passengers carrying mobiles, tablets and other devices.”

Some additional key findings from this survey have shown the following:

• Almost 90 percent of airport operators that participated in the study said that they had intentions to invest in kiosks, as well as self-boarding stations and self-serve bag dropping stations within the span of the next three years. This year, alone, airports are expecting to spend about $6.8 billion on tech.
• Nearly half of the airlines that participated in the survey are able to update passengers about flight issues – such as cancellations or delays – via mobile device. By 2017, that figure is expected to rise to 97 percent.
• Under 5 percent of passengers around the globe are currently using their mobile commerce to check in, but that rate is expected to reach the 15 percent mark by 2017.

The co-founders of the company, David Tisch and Alan Tisch feel that high fashion is headed to smartphones.

Although mobile commerce has seen a considerable amount of resistance when it comes to the willingness of consumers to start using it, the barriers that have been standing in its way appear to be coming down and a growing number of shoppers are choosing their smartphones and tablets for making online purchases.

This being the case, the co-founders of Spring are now hoping to continue the trend with a whole new m-commerce experience.

David Tisch, one of the Spring co-founders, said that “Every single transactional property on mobile—whether that’s Uber, or Hotel Tonight—is lowering the barrier to make significant transactions on your mobile phone.” The company is now betting that this will continue as he and the other co-founder, David’s brother Alan Tisch, are trying to use Spring – an app that was launched this fall – to try to bring the fashion world onto the smartphone screen. The goal is to provide the experience of a shopping mall on the tiny screen of a cell phone or tablet.

This mobile commerce app experience currently represents over 250 brands from the fashion world.

The majority of the brands on Spring are within the mid-label category, but there are some high end and lower end options represented there, as well. Approximately half of the products that are carried by the app are within the price range of $100 to $500. However, they feel that they are differentiating themselves through the other half of their m-commerce offerings, which provide a massive selection from the lower ends and high ends of fashion.

According to Caroline Brown, the CEO of Carolina Herrera, one of the labels on Spring, “I think that the expectation of customers today for an important brand is that you have to be present on all those channels.” She went on to say that the time has arrived in which it is simply not acceptable to fail to be present over mobile commerce channels. For Spring, this is only the jumping off point as they want to create not only a presence, but a highly desirable experience for shoppers, at the same time.