Mobile Web Review: Walmart vs Canadian Tire

Recently Canadian Tire and Walmart have made forays into the mobile web world. I decided to take some time to review what they had to offer.

I asked myself a simple question:
If I received a link to one of these sites for a featured/sale product, what would my experience be if I clicked that link using my BlackBerry or iPhone? (For example if I had received the link in an email or tweet from a friend)

Walmart
I took a product featured on Walmart's home page, a set of transforming toys, went to the product page and sent myself the link. Unfortunately my experience came to a screeching halt when I clicked on the link because most of the page content was flash based, which is not supported on either device. After the first attempt I gave Walmart a second chance. On the second attempt, I sent myself a link to a product from their online flyer, which actually has a sharing feature encouraging me to share product links. This time I got a page, however it wasn't from their mobile site, I was simply loading their full website. As you would expect this took a long time to load, not all content showed up, and I was forced to zoom to read it. Walmart's Mobile Website (viewable on computer - blackberry version)

Canadian Tire:
Canadian Tire did better. I sent myself a link to a product featured on the home page, a 3-in-1 Lawn thickening mix. Clicking on the link from either Blackberry or iPhone worked well. The page loaded relatively quickly and I was able see the product details in a mobile formatted page and add it to my shopping list if I wanted. Good Job Canadian Tire. Canadian Tire's Mobile Website (viewable on computer)

To be fair though, Canadian Tire still has some significant room to improve and Walmart's mobile presence, though it's product pages aren't available, has some other valuable features. Canadian Tire's mobile website is primarily a mobile product directory, which is a great step, however with the mobile technology available today I'd like to see them highlight featured products and promotions, and utilize the mobile phone's GPS functionality (yes that can be done on a mobile website too, not just in an App). Using the GPS location from the phone, Canadian Tire's mobile site could highlight what featured products or promotions are at the closest store and tell you how to get there. Walmart's mobile site, though poor at supporting link sharing, already utilizes GPS for their store locator and also prominently highlights promotions and the instore flyer.

With customers sharing links on a large and growing scale it is important to consider how your mobile initiatives support this behavior. Without considering scenarios like the one I've highlighted here, you risk frustrating your customers by giving them an experience that does not live up to your brand.

Mobile friendly websites are becoming crucial for your audience's experience

You’ve just scored a social media victory. The buzz about your brand / product is trending on twitter and it’s the hot topic for Facebook status updates. People are talking about you and they want more. Through their mobile phone your audience click on your link excited about what you have to say. However, the frustration sets in as they wait while the page loads, and when it finally does the tiny text and blank space, where a flash component used to be, serve only to create more frustration. Unfortunately this scenario is far too common.

Two trends are driving this frustrating user experience. First, people are sharing links on a huge scale, and second they are increasingly using mobile phones to access the internet. Consider this, the service bit.ly which is used by many to shorten URL’s for status updates on facebook and tweets, reports that their shortened URL’s are getting 2 billion clicks a month. (And this is just one of a handful of services to shorten URL’s) While at the same time mobile browsing has more than doubled its share of all browsing over the last year according to figures by Net Applications.

Are you ready for your audience when they click on a link to your site from their mobile phone? Or are you creating barriers for them by not having a mobile friendly site?

At Trioro we design, build, and integrate internet technology to help you connect with the people that are important to you, regardless of device. We have experience creating mobile web and mobile applications for clients such as Crystal Light, Kool-Aid, and Sweetspot.ca. Ask us how we can help you make these technologies work for you too.

Who needs paper! - Part 2

Though phrasing their headline as a question, rather than a statement, the Economist has published an interesting article also called "Who Needs Paper?"

What I find particularly interesting, is that the article mentions that Continental Airlines is testing a system to deliver tickets to traveler's mobile phones using the same technology as the Digital Coupons I talked about in a previous post.

Digital Coupons - part 2

A couple days after my last post on Digital Coupons insideTORONTO ran an article about the Downtown Yonge BIA providing its 2000 members the ability to offer digital coupons through its Mobile Yonge program. : Yonge Street stores going high-tech


Though not explained very well on the Mobile Yonge site, the system works by choosing coupons on their website or through a mobile version of their website. Then if you have a decent mobile internet browser, you redeem the coupon by viewing its unique bar code on your phone's screen, which the cashier scans at the time of purchase.

If you don't have a good browser, you're left to print the coupon at home and bring it with you.

I signed up to try it out, and I must say that only having two coupons available is a little underwhelming. I hope they have a lot more in the pipeline.

Digital Coupons

Some grocers are experimenting with digital coupons. The most promising of these looks to be a system where coupons are “loaded” onto the shoppers loyalty card. The shopper selects coupons online adding the coupons to their account. Then, at the register, the system retrieves the coupons for the products purchased.

What seems to be missing from these systems are options for the shopper to remember what coupons they have “clipped” once they are already in the store. Right now, the shopper needs to go online to look at their list and print it off.

An option to retrieve the list from a SMS text message might be helpful for the younger, on-the-go crowd, but they are not usually the target demographic for coupon clipping. In store kiosks may be a smarter option for the target coupon clipper. The kiosk would allow shoppers to scan their card to receive a print-out their coupon shopping list. Stores that already have self serve check-out kiosks might be able to avoid additional capital expense by adding this extra feature to this existing infrastructure.

There are also other types of digital coupons out there. One example is with mobile phones where the consumer takes a picture of an advertisement with their cell phone and sends it to a short code. The picture is matched to an available promotion, and a coupon is sent to the consumer’s cell phone. One company that provides this service is Snaptell.