I think of shopping as a necessary evil and never believed in
the eBay ‘shop victoriously’ slogan. Online shopping saves time, but some items need to be looked at
(‘squeezing tomatoes’) or should be ‘returnable’. Amazon doesn’t help. Store web sites?
Good luck finding anything useful like stock availability there and I hate
shipping fees!
Enter eBay’s Milo.com. It is not a sexy app. It is a plain web site
that lets you check real-time store inventory connecting with the back-ends of
major retailers, but I think it points to the future of retail (according to eBay CEO John Donahoe), whether eBay or someone else succeeds there. Why:
Milo answers the key consumer question – is the item
available in-stock across multiple retailers & stores at a good price (than just price
alone), instead of the painful ordeal of going to each web site or physical store. Milo helps you
decide whether a drive to Best Buy or Sears is easier than waiting for a
package, even if 2 days from Amazon Prime.
Milo is not perfect. It works only for a few national chains
and has many glitches. I don't think many people use it. It’s not a cutesy mobile app that bombards you with
coupons or makes you feverishly run for offers or check-ins or announces your shopping skills to your friends. It is a start-up acquired by eBay in 2010, but interesting point here
is demonstrating the value of tight real-time inventory check and availability-to-promise
function across all stores and online. This establishes the consumer at the center of his multi-channel activities, without being segmented as mobile/
social/ web/ physical shopper, especially when mobile-to-web, web-to-store,
mobile-to-store and even physical catalog-to-mobile-to-store flows are much
more the norm.
In the last few years, many high profile mobile apps for
shopping/ scanning/ pre-purchase promotions have emerged – ShopKick, AmazonPriceCheck, eBay’s RedLaser (which still needs to integrate better with Milo) etc and loyalty card/ mobile wallet/ payment apps from start-ups and behemoths alike. However, for physical goods, any app without a tight link to the back-end inventory, catalog
and order management processes is only marginally useful at best, and
embarrassment at worst (like the recent Best Buy fiasco) emulating the death march of Borders and Circuit City.
eCommerce is bound to explode, but still has huge
disadvantages against brick-and-mortar stores for physical goods. Seamlessly
integrated solutions connecting enterprise software (such as SAP) and consumer
front-ends (mobile/ web) to offer multi-channel commerce are increasingly
required to meet the new user expectations, merging online and offline
commerce. As a curious consumer with enterprise software background, this
is a fascinating convergence and I hope to discuss some observations in this blog
and also learn from you!
Excellent writing Alex. Keep them coming.
ReplyDeleteThanks Pushkar! The first post is always the toughest. Hope I can keep it going..
ReplyDelete