Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

To make comparisons easier, let’s assume the mobile app we’re discussing is to remotely allow for a purchase–such as Amazon’s app–that will likely be funded by a traditional payment card. As mobile purchases expand more, should it be held to the same Web E-Commerce standards?

Making this debate even more complicated is the unanswerable question: “Even if revenue across all channels is flat, how do we know that sales would not have plummeted had we not deployed mobile?” When arguing with a CFO, it’s always fun to point to the millions in revenue that otherwise had been lost had they not approved your initiative. Proving a negative is easy, as long as no one is paying too much attention.

That said, if the target demographic is one that is in love with all things mobile (hello, Gen Y), taking yourself out of any conversation is quite dangerous.

Said one major retail chain CIO who is in the midst of such a transition: “I don’t see any risk and I wouldn’t want to avoid those channel shifts. It’s still coming through digital channels, which is what customers want and at a much lower cost than phone or traditional storefront. Let’s look at the bigger picture. Smartphone sales are going through the roof and customers want to use those devices for apps and other data needs. Having a mobile presence is about meeting those customer’s changing expectations.”

Added that CIO: “Using a mobile app is easier than a Web site because mobile devices are always connected and they are always on. That is much easier for a customer than waiting for their laptop to boot up, connect to the network, launch a browser and type in the URL. So, as a company, you have to ask yourself: ‘Do you want to respond to your customers’ needs? And what is the cost of not doing this?'”

A reality check is that, from a broader perspective, these are very old arguments, going back to the pre-E-Commerce days when chains had nothing but in-store. “When you decided to open up another store 10 miles from a very successful store, the manager of that first store thought ‘All you’re going to do is steal my customers,'” said Richard Mader, executive director of the National Retail Federation’s Association For Retail Technology Standards (ARTS). “The counter was to say ‘I can attract additional people from this outreach area.’ You’ve got to look at mobile as a way to establish and improve relationships with a customer on a long-term basis. I may get a customer who really loves to deal with their mobile device.”

One of the retail IT execs said senior management needs to understand that sales shifting from one channel to another is a fact of retail life, and mobile is no exception. “When a retailer has a complex multi-channel strategy to sell basically the same product, cannibalization will occur and, in many cases, it will be significant,” the IT exec said. “However, with the engagement of new channels, it should be expected that there will be opportunities for new customers, cost efficiencies and a larger piece of market pie.”

Another factor is that, compared with E-Commerce, there are far more platforms that mobile needs to consider supporting. Granted, an E-Commerce site needs to deal with programming differences between Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Safari browsers. But that’s trivial compared with the mobile differences between the iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Palm, Windows Mobile and Symbian platforms. The lack of standardization in mobile today makes Web standards look positively strict and orderly.

“Managing a single Web store versus [an unlimited] number of mobile devices” is huge, said Paul Rasori, Verifone’s senior VP of global marketing. When dealing with in-store product purchases, he compared managing a Web site with “more than a thousand mobile devices that you have to purchase and manage.”

What’s old is new again? As the board of directors starts getting comfortable with soaring mobile sales, they’ll default to what they know and try and apply Web and brick-and-mortar standards to mobile. The trick will be convincing them to simultaneously accept that cannibalization is nothing new and should be dealt with as it has been dealt with for decades while also embracing mobile’s unique attributes. “It’s the same despite huge differences.” Yeah, that’s the slide I want to show to the board.