App-Based Shopping: Retailers Push for Engagement through Technology
Published 11/8/2012
Author: Marguerite McNeal
Author Biography
Marguerite McNeal is a staff writer for the AMA’s Magazines and e-Newsletters.
Summary
In the race to stake a claim on mobile-app-based shopping, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. began testing its Scan & Go app earlier this fall at a store near the retailer’s Bentonville, Ark., headquarters. Using smartphones, shoppers will be able to scan and bag items as they browse, in hopes of avoiding long checkout lines.
“I think it’s smart for them to do it, to get their toe in the water by leveraging mobile,” says David Slavick, vice president of retail consulting and business development at Customer Communications Group, a Denver-based CRM agency.
For Wal-Mart, the Scan & Go app was developed in part to save the company money it has traditionally spent on cashier wages—the company claims to spend $12 million for every second of average transaction time.
2012 Marketing Thought Leaders/American Marketing Association
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