The magicians of mobile commerce want you to believe. They conjure up whiz-bang scenarios of the future and tout the amazing adventure of shopping on the Internet using wireless devices.
You’ve probably heard this one: Walking down the street, you approach a Starbucks coffeehouse and your cell phone automatically rings. On the screen, up pops a coupon for a $1 latte.
Or this one: You stride into a department store and slip into that perfect pair of jeans. A bit pricey? No sweat for your wireless device. Punch the bar code of those must-have jeans into your cell phone and receive a 20 percent discount from an online retailer.
Sounds great, but don’t be fooled. Today’s reality of mobile commerce or “m-commerce”–online shopping done on the run–is a disappointing shell of what’s to come.
The number of U.S. households with Internet access through wireless devices climbed to 7.4 million in July, up 12 percent in just four months. Americans will spend $21 billion shopping with mobile devices by 2004, predicts International Data Corp., a research firm.
Today, the shoppers are few and far between. Even those with access to the wireless Web haven’t completed a purchase, mostly because the experience is entirely too troublesome.
This first attempt at m-commerce by retailers and service providers is just that –a practice round.
Amatvia Ben-Artzi seems like he would be one of the first to get his toes wet with m-commerce. His job as chief executive officer of NetPost, a Mountain View, Calif., start-up, is to help people buy things from their wireless Internet gadgets. The company makes software for sending information to devices.
Yet Ben-Artzi avoids the wireless Web.
“It’s frustrating. It’s slow. It’s not really helpful,” he says. “It’s a toy for those who are Internet freaks, but it’s not for regular working people.”
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Between cell phones and handheld organizers, phones are the second-class shopping option.
For the most part, today’s attempts at m-commerce are a repeat of what’s worked in the PC-based Internet. The blue chips of the stationary Internet are also making forays into the mobile Web: Online stores Amazon.com Inc., Barnesandnoble.com Inc., portals America Online Inc. and Yahoo! Inc., and auctioneer eBay.
But the best m-commerce applications deliver familiar products on-the-fly.
Purchasing movie tickets is one of the best examples. After surfing the wireless Web for a nearby theater and finding out show times, Moviefone allows consumers to pay for tickets through their cell phones.
Skip the long lines on a Friday night and guarantee yourself a seat in the theater. It almost makes today’s frustrations with m-commerce worthwhile.