Location-Based Commerce: An Evolution In Mobile Shopping

Since the dawn of mobile commerce, retailers have dreamed of leveraging location-based services to deliver an immersive multichannel experience for in-store shoppers. Retailers have experimented with various mobile marketing technologies including short message service (SMS) and multimedia message service (MMS) coupon codes. Despite some limited success, poor consumer experience, cost, and the limited availability of mobile location technologies have hindered consumer adoption. Location-based commerce is an evolution of mobile commerce that leverages the known location of the consumer to drive contextual engagement with mobile shopping applications relative to a known location or retail store. The combination of GPS, application multitasking, and push notification technology in newer Android and iPhone handsets for the first time has created a cohesive platform that eBusiness executives can leverage to deliver tightly integrated multichannel promotions, offers, and services directly to their customers at the right time and in the right place.