Cellphones open stratospheric possibilities for impulse buying
By Gwen Ridsdale (written by Charlene Smith of Charlene Smith Communications Pty Ltd (c))

Impulse buying is the biggest money maker for retailers; it’s why chocolates and magazines are placed next to supermarket tills or edgy jewellery next to pay points in designer stores. Research has shown that 40% of purchases on e-commerce sites are impulse buys – now take it to the next level, a person watching TV or browsing a magazine sees an sms number next to that great pair of shoes, exotic holiday or plasma screen…

Marketers, novelists, movie makers and techies have told us for years it will happen and now it has. In a world-first, Pocit, the cellphone payment system I work for has paired with Digital Life to offer a range of IT products reviewed by the mag for sale by cellphone. And boy, are those products moving!

The products are also offered at a good discount over store bought purchases and within 24 hours of keying in your details a consultant phones to arrange free delivery – what more could you ask for? You need never leave the couch; pass the popcorn and those things that claim they jiggle away fat while you do the couch potato thing.

The Yankee Group and Ernst & Young conducted surveys where they asked people why they would make impulse purchases on the web. According to The Yankee Group (November, 2000), 75% of survey respondents indicated that a “special sale price” would motivate them to make a spontaneous purchase. The second most influential factor was free shipping (49% of respondents). Ernst & Young (January, 2000) reported that 88% of impulse purchases were because shoppers found products that were offered at good price [or] on sale. However, more recent research by Interface Engineering says that impulse buys are often influenced by good display, for example, a woman walking in a store that has shoes she likes, stops in front of a cardigan in the front of the store that is well displayed – she leaves with cardigan and shoes. The same applies to shopping using cellphones and ads – a good display and convenience creates a winning combination.

The ideas and concepts are fantastic and the reality even better, but implementing them in a techno unsavvy South Africa is somewhat slower. Although South Africans love their cellphones and good financial results from Vodacom and MTN prove it – Vodacom alone has 26 m clients in South Africa, they are deeply suspicious about scams and anything ‘new.’

It was instructive recently to read an old newspaper clipping of Dr Bill Venter of Altron in 1989, saying that he predicted that soon phones would have voicemail and people would use faxes instead of telexes. I wonder how many people today even know what a telex is, and whether any of us, even the older generation can remember a time when we didn’t take voice mail for granted.

Globally 700 million consumers will be shopping using their cellphones by 2013, according to Juniper research, already more than 50 million people in Japan shop using their cellphones with a similar number in the USA, millions more in Korea and the Philippines where they do anything from buy tickets for subways to a softdrink from a vending machine or a dress in a store using their cellphone. In South Africa political parties are using cellphone payments to fundraise with Pocit Elect and now Digital Life magazine with Pocit, South Africa’s fastest growing cellphone payment system have pioneered a world-first with ads linked to cellphone payment codes.

Advertising has been flagging in the media in recent times but this has the capacity to transform it. A person in a small town who wants, as an example, the Pinnacle Video Transfer priced at R1 600 in Digital Life – R335 cheaper than the normal retail price including delivery – doesn’t need to visit the city or go to a computer to use the internet; they simply use the item in their pocket, their cellphone. This could have a significant impact on women’s magazines and those serving the home décor market, a woman in Johannesburg who sees a beautiful dress in Cape Town can now have it, if the magazine offers this service. The opportunities are endless.

For the busy individual it opens up many opportunities for convenient shopping you can buy anything off a paper broadsheet from your cell phone, you no longer have to go to the shop or stand in queues. While watching TV you could order a product just advertised.

I know, as I write this, that in 20 years, someone will find this article and their reaction will be the one I had when reading Bill Venter’s quotes of two decades ago. They will think, as I did, wow, is it true – there was a time when we couldn’t do all our shopping by cellphone? They will cast their minds back and even if they’re 40 or 50, they won’t be able to remember the time.

· Gwen Ridsdale is marketing manager for Pocit and is based in Sandton – she loves being part of crafting tomorrow’s frontiers. Contact her on gwen@pocit.co.za or 011 575 7386