April 2000   

Jeff Bezos, chief executive of Amazon.com, was quoted in a March Associated Press article as saying, "It [m-commerce] is going to be the most fantastic thing that a time-starved world has ever seen." He also believes that eventually most of his business will come from mobile consumers. Considering that there are currently over 80,000,000 wireless phone customers in the U.S. alone, Bezos is probably right. That’s a lot of potential mobile shoppers.

How Does It Work?

Retailers create specially designed text versions of their popular online sites which are accessed by consumers with a Web-ready phone and wireless service offered by companies like Sprint PCS. The information is displayed on a mini-browser like the UP.Browser designed by Phone.com.

What Kinds of Services Are Offered?

Services that can be quickly accessed, explained briefly, and ordered with a touch of a button -- or more exactly, a touch of a key -- tend to be the most successful. Familiar names from the early Internet days are proving themselves leaders again with this new form of commerce.

Yahoo!, which started out as a search engine for the conventional Internet, now offers email from anywhere in the country on its wireless service. The company also provides a personal calendar and movie information, and it has plans in the works for mobile online auctions, too. Through its wireless service, Amazon.com sells just about everything, books and CDs in particular, that can be purchased on its conventional Web site. Both Yahoo! and Amazon require initial set-ups on home-based PCs. But after that, customers can access from anywhere.

If a traveler is lost in a strange city, Mapquest or Go2online.com can give directions. GetThere.com is a wireless provider of other types of travel information. Its service tells at which gate a plane will arrive and where luggage can be picked up. The industry is still in its infancy but it’s growing as technology allows. Dan Toporek, Senior Manager of Public Relations with GetThere.com says that for now, his company can only provide information about travel. You can’t actually book a flight from your phone, unless you want to go offline and make a voice call. But he does see wireless booking in the future.

Who Uses It?

Most users of the wireless Web are busy, structured people. They could be soccer moms or frequent fliers, but what they have in common is a need to access information and products in a no-nonsense way.

What Does It Look Like?

Just like a regular cell phone, the world of wireless is still pretty much green background and black text on a 3 x 3 screen. So what does this limited venue mean for the business wanting to sell to the busier, more mobile customer?

Keep It Simple.

For starters, online retailers who are looking to attract customers to the wireless Internet should keep simplicity in mind. Toporek says, "Companies need to think about the interface first and start from there, instead of trying to force-fit a service."

GetThere.com’s travel service, by its nature, was easily adapted to wireless. The company’s priority in shaping its wireless product was ease of use. "After all," says Toporek; "A phone’s primary use is for phone calls. The numeric keypad is set up for that purpose so any wireless business service has to adapt to that."

When businesses are designing their wireless Web content they should do the following:

• Avoid "sales-y" or promotional language.
• Break up conventional Web pages into mini or sub-pages.
• Keep text tight, efficient, and to the point.
• Use active verbs and simple sentence structure.
• Eliminate unnecessary prepositional phrases.

Stay Current.

Businesses that want to be successful in the wireless environment need to provide new content constantly. Two popular sites included with the Sprint service are CNN.com, which provides 24-hour-a-day instant access to news and information, and Ameritrade, an online brokerage firm that can send updates on stocks via a phone messaging service.

Commercial sites have to stay current as well. There’s no room for sites that were updated last month in the wireless world. It’s NOW or never.

Think Global . . . And Think Local.

While world news is important, what may become the most useful feature on wireless phones are sources for local information. Want to find a good Italian restaurant in a strange city? Need to find the nearest copy center in a hurry? Your wireless Web can do that for you, too. Businesses that can find a way to provide these local services and deliver them in a fast and concise form will fare very well indeed.

Phones That Do It All.

Roxie Ramirez, Sprint PCS Public Relations Manager for North Texas and Oklahoma, believes that phones just for talking are a thing of the past. She says, "Phones will become the ultimate in personal assistants." Advances like T-9 technology will help shift the medium from informational to transactional. With T-9, the phone’s number pad functions like a computer keyboard, only better. On a typical phone pad you have to push the "5" key three times to get the letter "l." But T-9 is "predictive typing" that anticipates what letter the typist needs next.

Ramirez also says that color screens and greater clarity could be seen in the next generation of cell phones. In addition, Sprint has formed new associations with several (soon to be announced) merchants who offer a wide variety of goods and services.

It’s Not Just About Tiny Screens Anymore, Either.

Something else for e-commerce businesses to consider is that with a simple attachment, travelers can hook their PC up to their wireless phone and have instant Internet access from just about anywhere. Someone sitting in an airport terminal in Chicago or on a beach in Hawaii isn’t going to want to scroll through pages of flashy graphics to get to information. What that means is that even conventional Web sites might need to be pared down to accommodate busy consumers who want things faster than ever before.