The rising popularity of discount coupons will be boosted by the ability to redeem them using mobile phones or tablets.
A new report from Juniper Research – ‘Mobile Coupons – The Smart Way to Shop’ – estimates growth will double last year’s figures reaching 10 billion coupons this year.
Redeeming coupons via mobile devices is more successful than traditional printed or PC coupons – 10 percent of mobile coupons are redeemed compared to one per cent or less of more traditional coupons.
Tied to the growth in mobile advertising, mobile coupons are a value add for MNOs: Facebook results show Q4 2012 revenues from mobile advertising accounted for 23 percent of total advertising revenues compared to 14 percent in Q3 – significant growth considering it launched mobile ads last Spring.
“Social couponing is becoming popular,” Windsor Holden, Juniper research director and report author explained to Mobile Europe.
“Operators can monetise big data and, once refined, offer it to advertisers and marketing companies for targeted ads.”
MNOs must find a role in the mobile wallet market,” Holden continued. “Coupons are pushing adoption – operators need to open APIs to win a role in the wider m-payment market.”
Offering something of a lifeline to increasingly endangered high street retailers, Juniper suggests outlets supporting mobile delivery channels will drive retail footfall, enhance the relationship with consumers and reduce churn.
“While we’ve heard online retail is killing the High Street, mobile offers a means of engaging with the consumer at every point in the retail lifecycle, from product discovery to product purchase,” Holden adds.
By refining, tailoring and personalizing offers to individual habits, mobile coupons give retailers additional opportunities to create more productive relationships with consumers. This new channel gives retailers the opportunity to integrate their digital and physical assets.
Dangers and obstacles remain: companies must add expiry dates to protect against coupons going viral which led to some brands being unable to meet resulting demand peaks. Further, some retailers are reluctant to upgrade POS terminals thereby creating a potential bottleneck.
However, the apparent success of numerous couponing apps is driving adoption and consumers are embracing them in similar ways to other m-commerce applications. The recent launch of Apple’s Passbook is expected to be a catalyst to coupon deployment and adoption.