Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

The other thing this does is possibly breathe new life into mobile applications. We’ve all read the reports that show such a large number of mobile apps that are downloaded and used only a few times before being deleted or just abandoned. What if the app’s primary value to the consumer was an M-Commerce engine, but its primary benefit to the retailer was a simple communication vehicle with the consumer when it is geo-context sensitive.

There are so many uses for a smartphone that aren’t directly related to commerce:

• The person who walks up to a car dealership and whose phone provides a list of cars he or she should test-drive based on both personal feedback and a ranking of how much time the consumer spent researching each model.
• The electronic retailer figuring out which associate should engage with the customer based on what that customer researched online (removing the need for everyone to learn everything or chase through the store looking for someone who knows a product line).
• A big-box retailer allowing a customer to tag an item in a store and then directing that customer to the online reviews for that item.

Then try is taking a picture of a retail item and pinning it to a board in Pinterest (I just had to throw that in here. There’s no such thing as a list without a Pinterest mention these days).

If I take a step back and look at my goals as a retailer, I would want to try and figure out a way to use technology to remove as many possible barriers to my sales. E-Commerce removes the proximity barrier to a sale, but it creates a sense of urgency. Although M-Commerce removes barriers to easy access to the catalog, it creates more challenges by trying to do to much in too small of an interface.

I’m not going to say that there are not plenty of M-Commerce opportunities out there for retailers to capitalize on, but I am saying that the benefits of having the consumer carry around a powerful computer in a pocket may go beyond easy-to-see dollars and cents.

What do you think? If you disagree (or even, heaven forbid, agree), please comment below or send me a private message. Or check out the Twitter discussion on @todd_michaud.