July 10, 2009
By the ZippyCart Shopping Carts Content Team
Book selling giant, Barnes & Noble, finally jumped on board with other retailers who have expanded their m-commerce (mobile commerce) efforts with the addition of an iPhone app. Now they can be even more competitive in the space offering their customers another way to connect and shop on their mobile phone. They have been doing very well with their normal mobile commerce site but the app will offer a richer, faster customer experience because many of the features and design elements are stored on the iPhone and therefore it does not require constant downloads from the servers. Early reports say that the overall speed makes it vary comparable to shopping online on your home computer.
iPhone apps make a lot of great features possible that a normal mobile commerce site could not accommodate. One of the most amazing parts of the Barnes & Noble app is the ability to take a picture of a book cover, import it from your cell phone to the app, and it will quickly return product details, editorial reviews and customer ratings. If you are an existing customer that shops online, you will have the added perk of having everything easily synced up from their back end to your account. All of these enhancements will make it a very popular must download for iPhone users who love Barnes & Noble. As more and more cell phone users adapt to using smart phones with app capabilities, it will become a must for retailers to have a mobile presence in addition to your traditional online storefront.
Scott is an avid fan of all things ecommerce. His claim to fame is that he "puts the Zip in ZippyCart." He considers himself the world-wide number one reader of TechCrunch, C|Net, and The Ecommerce Times. Scott has worked in the SEO industry for many years, but found himself always shifting his focus to review sites and ecommerce blogs. When we decided to start the ZippyCart Ecommerce news, Scott was an obvious fit. He handles most of our OpEds as he is a very opinionated guy. Scott is also our Twitter guy, so don't hesitate to send him a tweet if you see him online.
