Friday 11 December 2009

TOP 10 HOLIDAY MOBILE APPLICATIONS

The holiday shopping season is here and many marketers are launching applications to beef up their mobile presence.  So which applications have really nailed it this holiday season? Mobile Marketer consulted some industry experts regarding which applications they feel have really nailed it.  Based on industry expert opinions, here is Mobile Marketer’s top 10 holiday mobile applications in no particular order:

Target - The Target application simplifies and streamlines consumers’ shopping experience at Target stores and on Target.com. The application connects consumers to great savings, store hours and the perfect gift. Putting the power to save money and shop more conveniently into people's hands is part of Target’s "Expect More. Pay Less." promise. 


E-Bay Deals application - Available as a free download in the App Store, the Deals application features intuitive navigation, customizable search features and PayPal integration enabling mobile check-out. The application also lists holiday bargains.


SnapTell - SnapTell is revolutionizing the way consumers and marketers connect. Using a camera phone and SnapTell's image-recognition technology, users can easily and instantly access requested information and content. Marketers can effortlessly create campaigns using existing collateral and can alter their messaging on the fly in response to SnapTell-provided actionable metrics. 


Amazon - With the Amazon iPhone application, consumers get easy access to the millions of products available from Amazon and 9,000 other merchants. The user experience is great and the best part is that consumers can use it to skip long lines at the store.  


Yahoo Shopping – The application lets consumers search and buy from Yahoo’s catalog of products. Primarily the application functions as a tool for comparison shopping, but the application also features click-to-buy links to the Web sites of Yahoo’s merchant partners such as Target, Nordstrom, Amazon and Fossil.

Holiday Gift Guide by NearbyNow – This application is good for discovering gift ideas for hard-to-shop-for family members. There are 20 gift guides in the application, including Macys, Nordstrom, InStyle, Cosmo, Seventeen, Real Simple, Armani and etcetera. Users just type in a few things about their giftee, and it suggests products from all these guides. 


Christmas Cards by Hit Chili Apps - Instantly create an online holiday card and send. The customization is easy and it doesn't feel like you are spamming.


Black Friday deals by DealNews - Tracks all the Black Friday specials, great layout. Best because the content is great.

Kosher Cookbook – The Kosher Cookbook application gives users access to hundreds of recipes, custom meal plans and the ability to create personalized shopping lists. The Kosher Cookbook includes more than 300 recipes.

Best Buy - Best Buy’s Deals application allows iPhone and iPod Touch users to view weekly and mobile-only specials and find the nearest Best Buy store. The application features product reviews, exclusive content and click-to-buy features.



Research shows that 24 percent of smartphone users make purchases and they are proving to have greater purchase intent than PC users. It’s no wonder that marketers are so attracted to the Mobile application market.