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Walgreens First To Map Every Store In A Mobile App. Now If Customers Just Knew About It
In many respects, Walgreens seems to have given Aisle411 a download of all of its maps and left it at that.
That’s a shame, because this type of app—with a little more Walgreens integration (starting with inventory)—could be extremely powerful.
Nathan Pettyjohn, Aisle411’s CEO, said his team took 10 weeks to extract product placement data and a database of UPC information and to integrate those with mapping software. Given the limits of screen size on smartphones, Pettyjohn said design tradeoffs had to happen to keep the screens relatively free of clutter and make product locations obvious at a glance.
Full navigation, for example, had been done in other retail projects, but Aisle411 opted to not even try it with Walgreens. “The routing component became a nuisance. We got feedback that said: Why do you need to tell me to turn right on aisle 6? There was too much on the screen,” Pettyjohn said.
One design issue: If the shopper integrates a lengthy shopping list, it will place pindrops for all of them, with no visual indication of which product a pindrop represents. The shopper then needs to keep clicking on various pinpoints, which causes a small window to open indicating what the product is, until the desired product is found. Alternatively, shoppers could simply follow the line of pinpoints, confident that each represents some shopping list item and figuring that they will find out which one it is once they get to the aisle.
Aside from keeping the app a secret to its customers, this more simple approach to the app—no turn-by-turn, no real-time inventory, no active CRM component—has one definite advantage: The app reliably works. With many in-store apps actually functioning and doing so consistently is often more powerful than delivering sexier features.
A Google Maps trial with Home Depot last year, for example, was very sophisticated. So much so that it sent customers within those Home Depot stores to nearby Lowe’s—complete with street maps to guide them along.
From that perspective, a simple map program with every Walgreens’ layout and every Walgreens’ product is quite compelling. Now if any Walgreens customers could learn about it, then we’d have something.
Cards issued by European banks when used online cross border don't usually support AVS checks. So, when a European card is used with a billing address that's in the US, an ecom merchant wouldn't necessarily know that the shipping zip code doesn't match the billing code.
-Marc
