ARCHIVES: This is legacy content from before Marketing Dive acquired Mobile Marketer in early 2017. Some information, such as publication dates, may not have migrated over. Check out the new Marketing Dive site for the latest marketing news.

Apps could dominate on BlackBerry 6 OS: RIM executive

BALTIMORE ? Applications have better growth potential than the mobile Web on the BlackBerry 6 operating system, according to a Research In Motion executive at the eTail 2010 Social Media and Mobile Commerce Summit.

Both the mobile Web and applications have an important role to play in mobile marketing and mobile commerce. However, the capabilities of BlackBerry?s new offerings present the opportunity for more innovation and enhanced user experience in applications.

?[Apps and mobile Web] are complementary solutions,? said Tom Oliverio, manager of ecommerce, Shop BlackBerry, at Research In Motion, Waterloo, Ontario Canada. ?Yeah, as 4G comes around, the mobile Web will be great,? said Tom Oliverio, manager of ecommerce, Shop BlackBerry, at RIM, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. ?But, probably, the app will be able to grow on some of the stuff you?ll see from BlackBerry 6.0 for a better experience on the device.

?We see it shifting more towards applications,? he said. ?Still, that?s not to exclude the Web space.?

Mr. Oliverio was joined by David Sikora, president and CEO of Digby, Austin, TX, for a session titled ?Mobile commerce and mobile customer engagement,? focusing on ways retailers can create a better mobile shopping experience.

Growth in the mobile space
Mr. Sikora said that there were 3.3 billion mobile phones in use, three times the adoption of PC Web.

Additionally, the Digby executive said that mobile commerce sales in the United States hit $1.2 billion in 2009, and will grow to $2.42 billion in 2010.

Mcommerce sales will grow to $23.83 in 2015, per Mr. Sikora.

Mr. Sikora also showed data saying that 37 percent of smartphone owners purchased merchandise via their mobile devices in 2009.

In addition, 100 million smartphones are activated right now, but that number is expected to accelerate at a rapid pace in coming years, to comprise a much larger percentage of all active mobile phones.

?We?re at the tip of the iceberg,? Mr. Sikora said. ?We?ve seen a lot of innovation and cool use cases, but we?re just getting started.

?Over five to seven years, the adoption rate is going to start accelerating significantly,? he said.

Mr. Sikora also noted a shift in the performance of tasks from desktop computers to mobile devices because of more powerful devices, better networks, lower device costs and better mobile shopping experiences.

?The BlackBerry or iPhone is a computer with a persistant Internet connection and a two-inch screen and a lot of other idiosyncrasies,? Mr. Sikora said. ?People are going to do more and more tasks on smartphones.

?The tasks we care about when we?re engaging with customers are the same as many of those tasks ? ecommerce-oriented tasks,? he said.

The Digby executive outlined the companies mobile vision, which included mobile-optimized Web experiences, interactive catalogues and in-store experiences via mobile.

?These are unique devices, so we have to do some unique things and treat them special to properly engage customers,? Mr. Sikora said.

He outlined four keys practices for improving customer engagement on mobile devices:

? Buy: create easy-to-use mobile commerce platforms to streamline mobile purchasing and drive foot traffic to stores

? Learn: let mobile users find more information easily with technologies such as mobile bar codes

? Socialize: integrate social media such as Facebook and Twitter

? Demonstrate: promote ?featured offers? and use video to demonstrate products

Shop BlackBerry
Mr. Digby introduced Shop BlackBerry as an example of mobile commerce done correctly.

Shop BlackBerry was started about five years ago as an afterthought, mainly intended to facilitate warranty fulfillment for RIM, according to Mr. Oliverio.

However, the store now represents a focal point of RIM?s ecommerce strategy, and the only way customers can purchase products directly from the company.

Shop BlackBerry offers a full catalogue of accessories and third-party products, and features merchandising services, inventory and warehousing management, logistics (including end-consumer fulfillment and returns), as well as customer service and support.

The mobile component of the Shop BlackBerry store is accessible via mobile Web or an application, which can be downloaded in BlackBerry AppWorld.

The store lets customers browse, select and order accessories, and provides context-sensitive product suggestions based on the device used.

?The rich app took a lot of heavy lifting,? Mr. Oliverio said. ?We wanted to leverage all of BlackBerry?s functions and capabilities, and a rich application lets you do those types of things.

?All those feature sets you wouldn?t get in Web solutions we deliver on rich app solutions,? he said.

Good mobile commerce experiences will be increasingly important to retailers as consumer behaviors continue to adapt to advancing handheld technologies, according to Mr. Oliverio.

?When we think of the retail environment ? mobile or bricks-and-mortar ? customers have come to expect [better experiences],? Mr. Oliverio said. ?Each passing months, we see consumers are rapidly porting, or transitioning, what they would do on a desktop over to mobile devices ? email, browsing, banking, messaging.?

?Those things are becoming second nature, and we believe retail commerce is just another aspect of the conversation between RIM and the consumer,? he said. ?Consumers will have the reasonable expectation that they will be able to transact on mobile devices.

?That?s why we?re pushing this shopping for BlackBerry smartphones from BlackBerry smartphones.?

Final Take
Tom Oliverio, manager of ecommerce, Shop BlackBerry, at RIM, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada