Category: Mobile Commerce

Much of the future of smartphone based shopping may be designed to cater to this demographic.

The growing number of highly convenient options that are available through m-commerce are starting to become exceptionally appealing to moms, particularly those with very young children and who are struggling to keep up with a hectic schedule.

Retailers that are especially focused on that demographic are starting to make changes to appeal to them.

Among those retailers is Diapers.com. They are currently changing the way that they do business in order to cater to the new m-commerce environment that has become highly popular among their top demographic – moms with babies and toddlers. These retailers are discovering that moms have their smartphones with them no matter where they are and those devices are becoming their go-to option to investigate products, find pictures of rashes to try to identify what is on their baby’s skin, or watching videos to help them to get a cloth diaper technique down-pat.

They are texting pictures to proud grandparents and are using m-commerce to do their shopping.

This has led not only to the convenience of being able to order whatever products they discover that they need, whenever they need it, but research has also shown that when they are overtired, they are also making some rather interesting impulse purchases.

According to the Diapers.com senior vice president of marketing and business development, Michal Geller, “Moms send us stories all the time of nursing her baby at 3 a.m., realizing she’s almost out of diapers or some other essential, placing an order with us through our app, and having the package show up at her door later that day.” Geller added that “Same-day delivery is a game-changer for busy moms,” which is supported by research that has indicated that the diaper market, all on its own, will reach $52 billion worldwide over the next two years.

Though the majority of consumers enjoy taking on mobile shopping at a slower, gradual pace, moms have already established themselves as a considerable demographic that are using this channel on a regular basis to research their purchases, and often to make them, as well.

TechCrunch numbers suggested that m-commerce made up only 1 percent of the complete retail market space in the United States, last year. That said, about half of all Diapers.com purchases were made from smartphones or tablets. That, according to Geller, represents a spike of 25 percent over 2013.

This type of tech is proving to be very appealing to customers at quick service restaurants.

A pilot program is currently underway at McDonald’s, called “Create Your Taste”, which provides ordering stations that are somewhat like tablets, for guests, so that the familiar mobile technology feel can be tested out in the ordering process.

The program lets people use the tablets to customize the burger toppings that they want in their meals.

This mobile technology is available to customers inside the restaurants and it gives them the chance to try any of dozens of toppings that are not available to the customers who make their orders at the counter or at the drive-thru. Once the customized meals have been prepared for the customers, they are brought to them in fancier packaging.

Customers find that the mobile technology that is used feels very familiar, like their own tablets at home.

Throughout the pilot program, customers can either use the mobile tech on their own or they can take advantage of the assistance of employees. The test program has employees on hand to make sure that customers who are interested in giving it a try will be able to be guided through the process if they need the added help. Even the customers who were not able to figure it all out on their own still appeared to be quite happy with the experience.

This represents only the latest in a number of moves that McDonald’s has been making to appeal to the love that people have of technology and the personalized experience. There have been a number of mobile marketing campaigns that have already been run, as well as some added entertainment pilot programs that have been run that used augmented reality.

Other fast food chains have been jumping on board with mobile technology trends, as well, as they have used QR codes, run mobile advertising campaigns and have included smartphone ordering features as a part of their mobile apps. It is clear that the quick service industry is seeing tremendous opportunity in the fact that consumers are bringing smartphones with them everywhere they go.