Rogers announces Mobile Shopper, a M2M initiative with a goal to ‘breathe new life into the Canadian retail experience’

Rogers recently announced their “Rogers Alerts” initiative that gives customers who opt-in various coupons to their smartphone. When this launched last October, Rogers noted that it’s “a new location-based mobile solution that allows Rogers wireless customers to access personalized, location-based offers from their favourite retailers on their smartphone.”

Rogers is now forging ahead in this space and thinking a bigger game. Rogers announced “Mobile Shopper” today at the Wavefront Wireless Summit. This program, again an opt-in option for retailers, has similar traits to Alerts, but is “a machine-to-machine (M2M) solution that will enable customers to engage with brands in-store through mobile offers, applications and mobile payments technology all with their smartphone.”

Rogers hopes this will help “transforming the retail experience” and once again gives customers access to coupons and daily promos, but from the retailer standpoint brings valuable shopper data to help them “drive in-store traffic.” According to the press release, here are the specific benefits of Mobile Shopper:

• Enabling customers to engage with their favourite retailers across multiple channels from social media to the web and the store;
• Ensuring customers get targeted and personalized offers, messages and information that are relevant to them;
• Offering an efficient transaction process with mobile point-of-sale solutions and tap-and-go technology.

RioCan is currently testing Rogers Mobile Shopper in select Ontario-based shopping centres with the goal to improve “the customer experience.” They are using something called “Smart Wi-Fi solution” and Lyle Goodis, VP of Corporate Marketing for RioCan, stated “We now have a better understanding of customer traffic in areas of the mall and peak times of day, so we can design more relevant and personalized marketing and engagement activities.”

It seems that Rogers Alerts, which uses geofencing technology, is for Rogers customers and gives the option to receive coupons and promos from the places they already shop at. The Mobile Shopper program uses Wi-Fi tech and is designed for retailers. The real power is potentially in the data as it gives store owners access into consumer shopping habits.

It’ll also be interesting to see how the “mobile point-of-sale solutions and tap-and-go technology” rolls out, presumably it’s CIBC that assisting the backend to ensure a smooth transaction occurs.

Source: CNW