By comparing the mobile site and mobile applications (APS) twine Sophomore and Its competitors, who are Ultra and Nordstrom, the performance of Sophomore would be concluded.
By all means, the strength and weakness would be Included as well. By analyzing the above data, the recommendations would be made in the end of this project, in order to assist Sophomore to maintain the development in this topic area, mobile commerce. 2. Market and competitor review Introduce the market Mobile commerce become another new way to conduct the business since the mobile device is now one of the essential needs of daily life.
Turban.E (2012) defined the bile commerce as the business activities that conducting over the wireless telecommunications network. In the m-commerce market, the company might make money through the application software, which commonly calls as APS. Also, the APS would be another new platform for the business to communicate with the customers.
Furthermore, the other business activities within m-commerce would be the mobile site. The mobile site is a new version of online website, which Is such more user-friendly when the user visits the company site by using their mobile devices. Identify the potential opportunities and treatsIn the following, the opportunities and threat would be discussed, which Is concerning on the external factors to obtain In an analysis. As a result, the positive and negative side would be conducted, that are the opportunities and threats. By.
As the ASS stated in the whitepapers (2008), the brands have to be innovative in order to maintain the relationship with the customers. Since the mobile devices adoption continues to grow, therefore the mobile commerce would become an innovative business model. Since the m-commerce is a new business model, it's not mature enough for operation, as the intellectual property right is still a risk.Moreover, the online transaction would bring out another challenge, point-of-sale (POS) system. Since the POS might eliminate the face to face transaction, and the consumer have to use their digital wallet.
Therefore, the company must provide a stable and secure system for their consumers. Consider the competitors Comparison of Mobile-sites Advantages Disadvantages Sophomore Mobile site is available Offer exclusive offer on mobile site High level of categorization Able to check online order record Able to check reviews and ratings Unable to check order status Not re-purchase friendly Ultra No Mobile SiteOfficial website not mobile-friendly Nordstrom Search engine is available Location-based checking for stocks availability Able to check order record ; status Able to store payment method Able to Store address book for gift-giving to friends No filter is available Comparison of Mobile APS Nearby stores by GAPS Beauty Insider is able to link with Passbook on ISO Exclusive APS offer Able to scan products in store to check reviews and access "My Love" Different APS available for different countries Only available on ISO but not Android No product reviews and ranking is available Product searching by category, price and ratingsAble to scan product to get more info and reviews Able to share favorite products on social media platforms Search function is available Able to pay by debit card minor style" recommendation Bookmark "My store" for events notification Enhanced security features on login process Filter and sorting is available 'pad version is available Not full inventory as website version Unable to store payment information Conclude the company doing less or more Sophomore launched Passbook in 2012, which is able to link with Beauty Insider accounts for coupons and e-gift card.However, the competitor, Nordstrom, has acquired Handful. Mom to develop their e-coupon business. Router (2013) described it as an e-commerce gift to Nordstrom itself, it offered gift suggestions to users after inputting the gift receiver's information.
It wins entirely on the personalization of online purchase experience. 3. Current situation analysis Current situation on selected area Dir. S?layman (2008) pointed out that the new technology makes a huge change in advertising; companies should be ready for mobile commerce if they want to make business in mobile markets.Thus, Sophomore has developed a native app for their business, providing varieties of service through the mobile platform. It provides information service, mobile purchase, mobile loyalty cards and coupons.
Identify the online and offline business market product service offer On the other side, Sophomore also set up a functional mobile site (m. Sophomore. Com). Except the essential parts, which contain categorized products, products rating, and reviews, Cats (2013) agrees that the most customer-oriented part is "My beauty bag".Customers are requested to sign in their "Beauty Insider" account to take part of it.
No matter in-store purchase or online purchase, record will be stored under "purchases" of My Beauty Bag. It leads the customers could make their repeat arches by only one click. And "loves" feature offer a bookmark function to let the beauty insiders to save their favorite items in anytime, anywhere. "More than 70 percent of mobile traffic to Sophomore comes from ISO devices, so Passbook is a natural fit for Sophomore customers", said Julie Bernstein (2012), senior vice president of Sophomore Digital.Therefore, Sophomore drove in-store traffic by implemented Apple's new Passbook in 2012 as the beauty brand first stepper.
By the date of September 2012, there are over ask Beauty Insider cards added to Passbook reported by Mobile Commerce Daily (2012). This shows it was definitely a smart move for Sophomore to implementing Passbook as a part of their mobile marketing strategies. Besides, Sophomore offers gift Cards in different designs with different amounts which Passbook, but also able to send to friends by email. Identify the strength and weakness In this generation, cell phone has already become a part of our life.Meanwhile, people are getting used to the mobile commerce as well. King (2012) defined this phenomenon as the handset culture.
He also stated that the m-commerce may become a usual practice in our daily life. Concerning the strength of Sophomore m- amerce, Katie (2010) mentioned that Speakerphones would help customer to create the shopping list. Furthermore, the Spectrograph would locate the nearest location between the customer and Sophomore by the GAPS function. Therefore, the purchasing process might continue without time limitation.
Moreover, both mobile site and app were integrated with Backbone, which allowed the customer to share their beauty ideas on the official Sophomore fan page. Thus, a new sharing platform would be formed. Regarding to the weakness of sophomore m-commerce, since the Spectrograph was corporate by the Apple so the app might not be applied in the other network yester, which means Android. According to the article on nabobs.
Com (2013), it found that by comparing the Apple and Android, Android was the most widely used mobile operation system due to the exclusive program of Apple.In the result, the Spectrograph might lose the potential customers who are not using the ISO. Since the purchasing process moved online, the delivery of product might be the challenge as well. 4. Conclusion to the popularity of using mobile devices.
Thus, mobile APS and mobile sites are dedicated to this technology-oriented market. On the other hand, point-of-sale and security issues bring us challenges to m-commerce and it is not mature enough to control the information accessibility. In the view of the competitors, the mobile app of Ultra is the most functional one out of the three comparisons.Unfortunately, the Ultra website is not responsive, while Nordstrom owns a comprehensive mobile site. They still have a room of improvement in the transaction information storage and inventory providing. Sophomore offers all-around services in mobile including website, mobile site and mobile APS.
The APS service is stable and up to date. It succeeds to build customers loyalty and extend the customer base. Nowadays, the fast-growing of mobile devices technology make m-commerce be an opportunity to maintain the online business. However, it cannot cover the full population of mobile platforms as it only supports ISO.
Actually Android users' market shares greater than sis's, it makes the competitiveness of Sophomore become lower in the market. Furthermore, Sophomore have to face the threat of the safety problem in online purchase. A lot of privacy issues would be raised under the deficiencies of online purchase process. 5.
Recommendation Although Sophomore has launched an all-round mobile site, an Android app still has its demand. Lisa Anaphora (2013) reported on International Business Times that Over 70 percent phones sold in Europe out of all run on Android in the past 3 months.Most of Seaport's competitors like Ultra, they launched app on Android platform since long ago. In order to expand Seaport's audience base from smart-phone users, it has to develop and enhance the mobile APS across ISO and Android.
Of the customer might not feel comfort to use their digital wallet, such as the credit card, as the process might disclose or misuse the personal information of the customer. Regarding to the customer concern, which is about the personal data might be closed during the online transaction process. We suggest providing the cash voucher like Tattoo in stores.
