The wearable technology now has a new shopping app that is to be “the beginning of the journey” for the chain.
Tesco, the British supermarket chain, has now launched a brand new mobile commerce app, but it isn’t the typical shopping or informational app for smartphone users, as it has been designed for Google Glass.
The goal of this m-commerce application is to make it faster and easier for consumers to shop online.
Google Glass users can download the Tesco mobile commerce app for free. It is voice controlled so that the user needs only speak the commands in order to search through the database of products at the supermarket. An example of the phrases that can be used is “OK Glass, find a product: milk”. Equally, users of the wearable technology can scan the item barcodes when they are in store or if they are in their own pantry and wish to re-purchase what they already have.
The mobile commerce app also allows the user to browse for items that they can add to their basket, as well.
That said, when they want to actually check out, they will need to use the regular smartphone based m-commerce app. The intentions to create the Google Glass based application was first announced in June 2014. At that time, it was still a prototype.
According to Pablo Coberly at Tesco, at the time of that first announcement, “We thought about how our colleagues might be able to use Glass to check stock hands-free, or how our customers might be able to add a product to their grocery delivery basket while making a cup of tea.” He also added that arriving at that phase along the way has brought about new concepts with regards to user interactions, including “user interface elements, new gestures, and input mechanisms.”
Clearly, Tesco came a long way since that time, as they have now launched the Google Glass mobile commerce experience. Coberly recently blogged on the subject, singing the praises of the SDK for the wearables, and applauding the Glass team at Google for the support and experience that they provide.
The company has make a significant push to try to carve out a greater slice of the mcommerce pie.
InMobi is betting on the idea that its seamless mobile commerce experience will be popular enough that it will start to make a bigger name for itself within this market space, despite stiff competition from industry giants such as Google and Facebook.
The company develops and places ads for some of the largest brands in the world.
Among the brands for which ads are being created and placed by InMobi are Unilever and Samsung Electronics. These ads aren’t placed on the regular internet, but are instead positioned on mobile apps and sites so that they will be found directly in front of the consumer no matter where they are or when it is. Now, InMobi has decided to expand its presence by stepping into the mobile commerce enabling sphere in a way that is somewhat similar to what Just Dial Ltd. has been doing for a number of businesses.
Companies are starting to realize that mobile commerce is no longer an optional online feature.
As a growing number of shoppers worldwide start turning to their smartphones to purchase products, it is also becoming increasingly obvious to companies and brands that mcommerce is a necessity if they want to be able to stay ahead of the competition.
InMobi is now working with brick and mortar retailers, ecommerce companies such as eBay, hotels, and other types of businesses in order to help them to be able to make their place in the rapidly growing and evolving e-commerce world that exist on the smaller screens of smartphones and tablets.
Aside from that strategy, the company also generates revenues by helping to drive the downloads of participating mobile apps. According to Piyush Shah, the vice president of products at InMobi, “It’s the right time for us to double down on the mobile commerce space given the pace at which commerce is shifting to mobile.”
Within the next three to four years, Shah stated that the mobile commerce portion of the business will be making up about a third of InMobi’s sales.
