The Mobile Money Network™ Blog

Phil Vickery Checks Out on Mobile

MMN’s MD John Milliken featured heavily in last week’s Retail Week article ‘Smartphones Ring the Changes in Retail’. Discussing in-store mobile payments, John says, “The technology is available and relatively easy to implement; the innovation exists in being able to link systems together.” Our collaboration with Thomas Pink is an example of MMN’s innovation in this area: this week Thomas Pink unveiled the range of official merchandise for the British and Irish Lions’ Tour at The Golden Lion in Mayfair – renamed The Pink Lion for the duration of the week-long campaign. Lions’ coach Warren Gatland pulled pints while customers purchased Thomas Pink Lions’ apparel from pictures on the walls using MMN’s Thomas Pink mobile checkout app (demonstrated by Phil Vickery above). Martin Bayfield, Lewis Moody and Andy Irvine joined in the fun with rugby lessons on the turf outside.

Retail Week e-Commerce Summit

MMN Marketing Director Nick White gave the keynote speech at the Retail Week e-Commerce Summit on Wednesday, in which he explained both how mobile payments provide consumers with a simpler, faster way to pay, and how to improve distribution, reach and revenue by enabling mobile payments across all channels. The Summit saw a strong turnout from forward-thinking retailers and featured inspiring talks from Ishan Patel of Aurora Fashions and Sarah Baillie of Debenhams. On Tuesday, Nick’s panel ‘How Will e-Commerce Change the Future of Retail?’ provoked passionate discussion amongst panelists from Waitrose and Morrisons. A key theme from the event was the importance of data to both customers and retailers.

What is Mobile Commerce?

Nick White used this slide (above) to illustrate the mobile purchase process in four key quadrants: marketing, search, merchandising and checkout. The concept is expanded in our slide below, detailing the purchase in three domains – home (where PC and tablet are dominant), out and about and in-store (where, for both, mobile is dominant). As a channel, what makes mobile unique is its application to every quadrant and therefore its ability to draw together the purchase experience. For example, mobile can be used for search at home with the Tesco app, which enables customers to compile their shopping list by scanning the barcodes of products they are throwing in the bin. Equally, mobile is used at an in-store checkout with Pay by Square, which links the mobile device with the till. m-Commerce is a broad term and, as it develops, we will have to analyse its various components in greater detail to better explain it. The key is to understand that the mobile device, uniquely, knows everything about its owner and can influence and personalise their experience in each quadrant, enabling a targeted, bespoke service that perpetuates the ‘demographic of one’ experience. Mobile will never completely take over from e-Commerce, but it will become equally as dominant.

4G is here, but is it any good?

Everything Everywhere has launched 4G in 11 cities across the UK, offering a massive opportunity for the network if it can get it right. In the UK, we pay a lot for data and generally the experience falls short: at the moment, the quality of the service is holding the industry back. Faster broadband is expensive and, if it proves to be unreliable or offer poor coverage, customers won’t be happy. The predictions seem lukewarm: Guy Laurence, CEO of Vodafone, says that its own 4G service to be launched next year has a longer wavelength and will focus on providing a good service indoors, casting doubt on the reach of EE’s offering.

Battle of the mobile wallets

Vodafone made the news again this week when Gemalto announced the launch of its mobile wallet in partnership with the operator, as Project Oscar (the UK network operators’ JV, which includes Vodafone) announced its rebranding as Weve. On Twitter, the community questioned what this meant for Oscar/Weve: Vodafone is a global company with presence in 30 territories, and it is not surprising that it is exploring solo projects alongside the JV. All the member operators of Weve have their own wallets and NFC initiatives. Tweeters are missing the point: in the near term, Weve is positioning itself as a marketing platform while Vodafone launches the wallet in Germany and Spain. The question is how Vodafone will add differentiation to NFC that benefits consumers and retailers. If it’s only concerned with in-store checkout, it’ll miss out on a lot of what m-Commerce offers. Ultimately, to benefit the consumer and retailers, it needs to add value across the purchasing journey.

 

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MMN in the news

Drapers published a great feature this week which is an important validation of our strategy. In the piece, Nigel Grant, brand director of menswear label Pretty Green is interviewed about our relationship: ‘If someone is doing everything they can to come up with cool ways to engage with you and your customers, why not use that? Simply Tap is an early adopter of what I believe will end up being the norm.’

Thomas Pink British & Irish Lions Campaign

This week a number of publications reported our new collaboration with retailer Thomas Pink. The exciting project will see the launch of the Thomas Pink mobile checkout app – powered by Simply Tap – ahead of the British and Irish Lions Australian tour. The exclusive Lions collection will debut at the Golden Lion pub in St James, London which will be renamed The Pink Lion from Tuesday 30 October to Sunday 4 November. Drop in for a pint if you’re in the area.

Key messages from IR2012 

Carphone Warehouse CEO Andrew Harrison used his keynote speech at Internet Retailing 2012 to stress how chief execs need to embrace multichannel commerce. ‘Simpler, faster, cheaper,’ was his slogan as he weighed up the experience/speed/price comparison in purchasing a set of tennis balls from Amazon and a well-known online sports retailer (see slide above). Fellow speakers, Shop Direct’s Jonathan Wall and Morrisons/Kiddicare.com’s Alison Lancaster, emphasized the importance of data in multichannel.

Some interesting stats from the event, compiled by Simon Lilly, here.

Mobile commerce sites v apps

There are some illuminating stats in this Econsultancy report, which illustrates how shoppers use their mobiles. Figure 14 shows that most people prefer mobile commerce sites to apps. The good news for Google is that this is because people are searching in the same way on mobiles as PC’s – however this is likely to change with the advent of image and other recognition technologies. A more immediate problem is that over 60% of the UK’s top 100 retailers still don’t have a mobile optimised website – let alone one where merchandising is tailored to mobile.

Merchandising for mobile

In a guest blog for Forbes, Bill Ready, CEO of Braintree Payment Solutions offers some insightful guidance about how to provide a better mobile experience: provide a better mobile shopping experience, merchandise for mobile, make mobile purchases seamless, make mobile devices work for you.

His blog also has some interesting stats about mobile web sales conversion, which he says are 75% less than on a PC. We know from MMN QuBit Improving Checkout Conversion  that 90% of people who hit an e-commerce homepage don’t buy anything. If it’s 75% less for mobile then that’s very little conversion in comparison to number of visits. In last week’s blog we mentioned that one of the reasons that people don’t convert is that the site isn’t optimised or merchandised for mobile. MMN can help with sales conversion on mobile. We can help prevent dropout by providing the appropriate mobile interface and making it easier for people to pay in one-click.

The value of context 

Simon Andrews has been discussing how valuable context is to mobile advertising in his esteemed weekly blog Mobile Fix. ‘Reaching a New York Times reader when he is reading the NYT is more valuable that reaching the same person when they are checking their email or in a third party app.’ We couldn’t agree more and took the opportunity to discuss context in mobile commerce with him last week, at a roundtable event organised by fund manager Beringea where our MD John Milliken was guest speaker.

Coffee, croissants and smartphones

Next week, our Marketing Director Nick White is on the panel at QuBit’s Breakfast masterclass which considers what the mobile landscape means for business in 2013. Join him for a coffee.

For more news and opinion about mobile payments, follow @theMMN on Twitter.

If you’d like to get in touch, please call us on 020 7079 3930.

Follow the MMN company page on Linked In.

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Green light for Project Oscar 

Last week the major UK network operators – Vodafone, O2 (Telefonica UK) and EE (Everything Everywhere) received the go-ahead from the European Commission for their mobile payments joint venture (JV). Project Oscar intends to provide consumers with a streamlined way to buy products and services via mobile. The initiative creates a single contact point for media agencies and retailers to market and sell their goods to opted-in consumers both in store and online.

The shareholders have said that they are committed to make the JV services open to all. If this proves to be the case, the MMN expects the move to stimulate innovation and healthy competition.

Store tries on multichannel for size 

Meanwhile, the gap between offline and online shopping is narrowing on the High Street. Marks and Spencer’s opened a superstore in Cheshire last week which offers customers multichannel shopping.

Most large retailers have stores to test concepts and with their scale, it’s right that M&S is flexing its muscle in this direction.

Enabling assistants to access detailed, quality data and converse with customers on is great. Can M&S expand its demographic using technology? MMN has already helped Thornton’s reach a younger demographic by enabling them to purchase their products via instant mobile checkout.

In-store connectivity

M&S are following other supermarkets by introducing free Wi-Fi in their UK stores. MMN believes connectivity is the cornerstone of a good in-store shopping experience.

In-store Wi-Fi helps differentiate from the competition and increases footfall. But implementation for the sake of it could lose you customers; especially if they use that connectivity to find products elsewhere.

The key is to add to consumers’ encounter with a free or useful service, within a branded environment.

Improving marketing one pixel at a time

Marketing magazine The Drum has invited a bevy of creative digital leaders to discuss the impact of mobile on brands. One commented: ‘strategy needs to move away from reaching consumers when they’re technically available, to when consumers are behaviourally ready to engage.’

We think smartphones open up a massive canvas for one-to-one marketing: the ability to exercise rich data, anywhere and everywhere via a two-way conversation. But if targeted mobile marketing feels invasive, users will switch off.

It’s got to be done right. When data is linked together cleverly, based on factors such as ‘where I am’, ‘who I am’ and local events, mobile offers almost unrivalled marketing opportunities. By linking all available consumer data to create contextual insight, you can provide targeted, useful information at the point of need. Consumers are likely to welcome this and, importantly, act on it immediately.

For more news and opinion about mobile payments, follow @theMMN on Twitter.

If you’d like to get in touch, please call us on 020 7079 3930.

Follow the MMN company page on Linked In.

 

 

 

 

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Retail Week’s George MacDonald on new ways of buying
We were delighted to chat to George MacDonald, Executive editor of Retail Week about SimplyTap’s current Empire magazine ad campaign with HMV. The innovative ad allows consumers to make instant off the page purchases using QR Codes. George says: ‘New and more convenient ways of buying are increasingly important to retailers. They’re becoming interested in mobile and campaigns such as this because it gives them the means to grab more of spend.’

Square step up mobile retail innovation
We’re big fans of innovation at the MMN and are fascinated by what Jack Dorsey is doing at Square. He’s trying to break through the complex value chain which is involved in payments. He wants to have complete control over the process by owning both ends – the customer’s handset and the in-store till. It’s almost like an Apple model for the High Street. On the downside, trying to take on the world is inevitably slow and you’ve got to displace other businesses in the value chain like NCR. Till packages are quite complex and it’s telling that Square are only really making headway in coffee shops and restaurants. Supermarkets and department stores add extra complexity to the electronic point of sale with discount prices, vouchers and stock availability. Can Dorsey make his business truly attractive to medium and larger retailers? He’s obviously had great success with Square so far and the market has followed with companies like iZettle springing up. Can Dorsey run fast enough without everyone else catching up?

Why Apple aren’t dominating mobile payments… yet
Someone who won’t be in the race against Square just yet is Apple. There’s been speculation in the media about why they’ve been reticent about their mobile payment plans in the face of ambitious projects from Google and Microsoft. Apple is an enormous company which is principally a hardware business. None of its current revenue streams are impacted by it not moving forward into mobile payments right now and it’s become so large that it doesn’t have to innovate in non-core areas anymore. Apple has the luxury of being able to sit there knowing that it has hundreds of millions of customers using its technology and hang fire until the right moment. Why should it chuck a fortune away on mobile payments at this stage when it can buy the most successful business when things are more established? It’s a different story for banks and payment companies who need to innovate because their current revenue streams could be impacted by developments in the industry.

Networks to join forces on an open mobile payments platform
Talking of which, Project Oscar, a multi-carrier common UK mobile payment platform was meant to launch in time for the Olympics. However the FT reported this week that it could get the regulatory nod this summer. The operators have chosen not to comment on the project but on paper, it’s a really exciting development. We know historically with things like mobile data, that the temptation will be to try and own the entire environment. However if an open platform is put in place there could be proper innovation, proper consumer value and proper value for everyone in the eco-system. It could provide us with a step change in the growth of mobile payments and mobile money in the UK.

An m-commerce solution for small retailers
A study this week by Onepoll found that small retailers are moving slowly in their uptake of m-commerce. This isn’t a surprise – these guys are finding it tough: they’re worried about getting customers through the door and earning revenue. They know mobile is going to be big but they want to find out about it in a low risk way without having to invest in it heavily. We’re absolutely primed to introduce small businesses to the mobile retail environment. Through our common platform SimplyTap they can join other retailers and access new customers and channels in which to sell their products.

Visa look at how mobile payments will help all retailers
This week our MD John Milliken presented MMN to retailers at Visa’s When Worlds Collide event in London. More will be revealed about Visa’s plans for the future in next week’s post but it wasn’t a surprise that they emphasised mobile payment as a priority. Retailers of all sizes can accelerate their shift to mobile with Visa’s support of NFC and MMN’s instant mobile checkout, market places and network.

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Welcome to The Mobile Money Network blog. Rather than just using this space to talk about the exciting things we’re getting up to, we’ll also be providing insightful opinion and thought leadership about the business of mobile commerce. Things are developing rapidly in this world and we’ll be analysing how these changes affect retailers, banks and multi-channel media companies.

The story so far

If you want to know more about our business then watch Mobile Money Network: The Story So Far. Featuring contributions from our chairman Sir Stuart Rose and Retail Week‘s George MacDonald, it serves as an introduction to the mobile payments revolution which is changing the face of retail right now. This year, 35% of retail traffic will be via mobile and by 2020, Visa expects 50% of transactions to run through mobile devices.

The Economist on QR Codes 

QR Codes have been failing to become the next big thing in the UK for a while, but according to The Economist, they’re finally taking off. One of the reasons they haven’t worked is that consumers need an incentive to scan, be that a competition, giveaway or the opportunity to buy. The feature crucially ignores what happens when you monetize QR codes. Purchasing with a QR code turbo-charges the offering and gives the consumer an instant hit.

Booming in-store smart phone usage

Mobile Commerce Daily says we’re addicted to using our smartphones and 33% of us would apparently rather play with our phones than have sex! When it comes to shopping, the figures are even higher. A report from Tradedoubler found that 42% of smartphone owners in Europe are going online in stores to check prices, read reviews and get product information. The next step for retailers is to capitalise on the smartness of these phones by offering the consumer a virtual shop assistant on their mobile. While consumers won’t want to download an app for every retailer in the land, our Simply Tap app can offer this service, and undoubtedly, the virtual assistant will be better informed than its human counterpart.

Mobile banking snack culture

This week a Forrester Report said that US banks were spending one third of their digital budget on mobile this year. We’re surprised the figure isn’t higher. In the UK, mobile banking has become an accepted channel, in fact NatWest customers are making more log-ins via their mobiles than their computers. They’re using their devices in different ways to interact with banks – mobiles use is characterised by ‘snacking’ for example, checking balances, making payments on the move, while bigger screens are used for more in-depth tasks. The upshot is that consumers are becoming more in-touch with their finances and building a familiar and trusting relationship with mobile banking and payments.

PayPal can go further

One of the benefits of mobile payments is that you won’t have to remember to take your wallet out with you. This week PayPal released a video showing how much easier it will be to go shopping in Aurora stores and Pizza Express with a mobile phone. While we’re all for mobile payment iniatives, we’re keen to look at the whole retail process. For the retailer, payment comes right at the end of a journey which includes marketing and getting the right consumers and products through the door. To develop the mobile payment space and benefit consumers and retailers, we need to innovate at each stage of the chain.

Media coverage

Mobile Money Network was in the media last week when our Simply Tap/Thornton’s Best of British offer was mentioned by Lorraine on her daytime ITV show.

We’re also gaining attention in social media land with the innovative Virtual Vinyl Store which has been produced from a collaboration between Simply Tap, Liam Gallagher’s fashion label Pretty Green and Universal music. As well as offering music lovers the chance to purchase classic vinyl and participate in a music quiz, we’re offering a great trip to see the Stone Roses play in Japan.

In an incisive piece in yesterday’s Guardian, our MD, John Milliken, called for retailers to respond quickly to the fundamental shift in consumer behaviour that is being caused by mobile phones. The article has been creating some noise on social, and is definitely worth a read and a RT!

Out and about

This week our team are attending Etail Europe and the British Retail Consortium’s Retail Symposium. Please come and say hello if you’re there too. We’re keen to exchange information and ideas across the industry, and actively encourage you to pass our blog onto your colleagues. If you want to contribute, please post a comment or contact us. Follow our journey here or @theMMN for daily hits.

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