Today, almost every company with
a Web presence is thinking about or
developing mobile applications and
mobile Web sites. Customers expect,
and even demand, to be able to use a
mobile device of their choice to obtain information
or perform a transaction anywhere and at any
time. So, if a company wants to stay connected to
its customers, it needs a mobile presence.
Developing mobile apps or a mobile Web site
has some special challenges. The user experience
on a mobile device is fundamentally different
from that on a PC. There are special features on
mobile devices such as location-based services
that give firms the potential to interact with
customers in new ways. Firms need to be able to
take advantage of those features while delivering
an experience that is appropriate to a small
screen. You can’t just port a Web site or desktop
application to a smartphone or tablet. There are
multiple mobile platforms to work with—iPhone,
Android, BlackBerry, and Windows—and a firm
may need a different version of an application to
run on each of these.
It’s important to understand how, why, and
where customers use mobile devices and how these
mobile experiences change business interactions
and behavior. For example, do customers who
use an app conduct a greater number of transactions
(like purchasing) on apps when compared
to a mobile browser? When compared to a tablet
computer, do customers spend more or less
time researching products and shopping from a
smartphone?
Deckers Outdoor Corporation is the parent
company of brands such as UGG Australia and
Teva. Deckers launched a mobile Web site in
2011 and also offers an iPhone app. Deckers has
spent considerable time studying its customers’