Marketers' Interest in Mobile Coupons Unabated

[Posted by Neil Strother]

Mobile coupons continue to spark interest among marketers and vendors alike. The notion of marrying digital coupons with cell phones is just too powerful, especially in a sluggish economy. The latest moves:

• JC Penney is testing a new 2D barcode scanning system at its stores in the Houston area
• HipCricket is introducing a new point-of-sale (POS) system to help simplify the redemption process for retailers and quick-serve restaurants
•  M-Dot Network is promoting a new POS platform for retailers

These are all positive signs pointing to a healthy future for mobile coupons - which, as I said in an earlier report (available in full to Forrester clients), should be part of a retailer's strategy. But, admittedly, these are interim steps leading to a time when mobile coupons become much more common.

There is work to be done to make the process more efficient - for retailers and consumers alike. The fact we have vendors competing to set standards and incremental rollouts indicates we're still a couple of years away from a time when you can easily turn to your phone to save a few bucks.

What do you think? What's holding back wider deployment and use of mobile coupons? Post a comment below. 

Comments

[Ola Ayeni]

Neil, it's going to take something before we will see any form of mass adoption of mobile coupons. Why ? Too many players with different platforms and apps. No unified approach, every one is doing what they feel is the best app. Many need to understand what happened in Japan where mobile carriers agreed to work together and provided bundled services for consumers. This created an explosive utilization across the value chain.

Ola

[Mike Kavis]

@Ola,

That is the exact problem that M-Dot Network is solving. We are not trying to be another issuer of mobile content, instead, we want to be the single point of integration between all retail POS systems and all issuers of digital content (mobile and web). Our approach is to offer one simple integration for the retailers which gives them access to a huge inventory of mobile and web incentives. At the same time, we offer one simple integration to the issuers who in turn get access to a large network of retailers. We believe that M-Dot Network is the missing link that the digital incentive revolution is missing in order to achieve scale.

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS175012+24-Sep-2009+PRN20090924
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Soasta-Inc-1051640.html