iShop: Flash Lite–Enabled Comparison Shopping to Go

iShop Use Case

Mobile phones are undergoing a major transformation. After establishing themselves as communication devices delivering the marvel of talking from anywhere to anywhere on the go, they are now morphing into much more than mere voice devices, incorporating features that would otherwise require us to carry around additional devices such as a PDA, MP3 player, or a digital camera. What's more, many carriers offer Internet-enabled mobile phones and plenty of computational power to harness for innovative, data-driven applications and services. Despite all of the above, little has been delivered to the mobile user beyond the simple repurposing of PC applications such as e-mail, Internet browsing, or video games—undoubtedly useful applications, yet not designed with a mobile user and ubiquitous Internet access or web services in mind.

What mobile users really need are effective ways to leverage the wealth of computing power and the Internet for simplifying and streamlining everyday tasks that have been part of our lives well before the introduction of the PC. After all, human beings are mobile and deserve to experience the benefits of the information age not only by sitting at a computer desk, but rather while performing the many small transactions that are part of our daily activities. Wouldn't it be great if you could use your mobile phone to perform secure payments at any point of sale? Wouldn't it be great if a web service would automatically categorize the expense in real time, and if another one could provide instant access to expense reports?

How about shopping? When was the last time that you entered a local bookstore, grabbed a book from the shelf, and wondered whether there might be a better price available on the Internet? Or what other readers might think of the book and what other books on similar topics might be interesting? And what about that cool-looking digital camera? Does it really take good pictures? Is the shelf price fair? Could you get a better deal online? Shoppers ask all those questions millions of times a day in thousands of retail stores. Now there is a quick-and-easy way to get immediate answers thanks to iShop, a new Flash Lite application for doing comparison shopping on the go.

Comparison Shopping on the Go

A typical iShop session begins with the user walking into a retail store and browsing the items on display. When the user needs more information about an interesting item, he or she launches iShop and types in the item's model or barcode number (ISBN or UPC), and iShop quickly fetches the latest price and reviews from the Internet. The user can compare the price on the store's shelf with the one on iShop and make decisions about where to buy.

Also, since reviews and recommendations can be retrieved from iShop when needed while at the store, there is no more need to print out pages from the Internet before heading to the store, further simplifying the shopping experience. Conducting similar operations with WAP would be much slower, because the web browser would have to fetch both the UI elements and the content over a slow wireless connection. Conversely, the iShop UI is preloaded and only the content is dynamically downloaded, making the application very responsive and the user experience far more effective. Items can be added to a personalized wish list that, in turn, can be sent to the user's e-mail address so that purchases can be finalized from a secure SSL connection on a desktop PC. Also, any item details can be immediately sent to other mobile users using SMS and MMS, making iShop a truly mobile application.

User Benefits

iShop has been designed as a mobile application from the ground up. It is not only a great improvement over the poor WAP browsing experience, but it redefines how connected applications are created and work. Its innovative user interface enables any user to quickly retrieve critical shopping information about a product with minimal input and keystrokes. While iShop provides benefits to its users from any location where it is used, it delivers the maximum benefits when utilized at a retail location such as a local store. In fact, it is at a local store, at the point of shopping, that most shoppers seek the benefits of touching and feeling an item on display while reading the latest reviews and compare the price on the tag with others online.

iShop not only helps in finding a great bargain from any shopping location; it also effectively eliminates the time-consuming need to research product information prior to the visit at the local store. It also eliminates the dependence on poor customer service reps and sales associates, who are often not well-informed about the products carried by the store.

In addition, iShop's e-mail, SMS, and MMS integration greatly facilitates keeping track and sharing shopping information among family and friends, thus aiding with feedback when making buying decisions. For example, when shopping for a gift, a user could send an SMS message containing the gift's description to a friend, who knows about the gift recipient's preferences and receive instant feedback.

Entirely new ways of shopping are possible using iShop; shopping for the same items in various local stores and leveraging the iShop integration with the phone's MMS client to exchange pictures and descriptions makes comparison shopping more fun and effective.

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