An unexpected benefit of a smartphone

I was intrigued to read about one use for a smartphone that I hadn't anticipated. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Until recently, retailers could reasonably assume that if they just lured shoppers to stores with enticing specials, the customers could be coaxed into buying more profitable stuff, too.

Now, marketers must contend with shoppers who can use their smartphones inside stores to check whether the specials are really so special, and if the rest of the merchandise is reasonably priced.

"The retailer's advantage has been eroded," says Greg Girard of consultancy IDC Retail Insights, which recently found that roughly 45% of customers with smartphones had used them to perform due diligence on a store's prices. "The four walls of the store have become porous."

. . .

It remains unclear whether large numbers of Americans will be willing to take the extra time to compare offers with mobile programs. Some consumers may want to deploy the technology only when buying expensive or unusual items.

Still, store chains are increasingly concerned about the ability of mobile-equipped shoppers to tilt the balance of power in retailing toward consumers—in part because their numbers are quickly rising.

On the Friday after Thanksgiving a year ago, consumers using mobile devices accounted for just 0.1% of visits to retail websites, according to Coremetrics, a division of International Business Machines Corp. that estimates e-commerce activity. This Black Friday, they accounted for 5.6%, for a 50-fold increase.

E-commerce experts expect use of shopping apps to mushroom as more Americans purchase smartphones.

Dozens of mobile shopping apps are already available through Apple Inc.'s iTunes, and programmers are busy developing many more to transform smartphones into shopping weapons. Many of them use phone cameras to photograph bar codes and QR codes, or simply let users speak a product's name into their devices.

. . .

Although store executives publicly welcome a price-transparent world, retail experts don't expect all chains to measure up to the harsh judgment of mobile price comparisons. Some will need to find new ways to survive.

"Only a couple of retailers can play the lowest-price game," says Noam Paransky, senior manager at consultancy Kurt Salmon Associates. "This is going to accelerate the demise of retailers who do not have either competitive pricing" or a standout store experience.

Because consumers made more frugal by the economic downturn are flocking to the cheapest offers they can find, comparison shopping via smartphones is making it harder for many retailers to charge higher prices in stores than on their websites.

"Those days are over," says Laura Conrad, president of comparison site PriceGrabber.com. Despite the higher costs associated with a bricks-and-mortar store, "The line between offline and online has been blurred."

There's more at the link. Very interesting reading.

I'm intrigued. I'd decided against buying a smartphone for myself, because I simply wasn't away from my computer often enough during the day to need to check e-mail or access the Web from another device. However, this throws a completely new element into the equation. I might conceivably save so much on purchases by regularly checking prices online that the savings would more than pay for the increased cost of a smartphone calling plan. That'll make the latter a much more financially attractive proposition. I'm going to have to look into this.

Peter