Using QR Codes to Trigger Retail Sales

Wilson Kerr of Unbound Commerce is an expert in helping retailers mobilize their sites and develop Facebook commerce for excellent customer experience and incremental sales. He made an awesome presentation to my social media marketing class last week in which he argued that mobile commerce is exploding and all ecommerce retailers need to become mcommerce retailers also. The factoids in this Ad Age poster support his argument. If you’re interested in drilling down for details on any of them, visit the page and click on the Mobile Marketing tab.
Once a retailer has mobilized her site and is open for mcommerce, the trick becomes to attract people to the msite, at anytime from anywhere. I was struck by Wilson’s concept of “Trigger Point Marketing.” It’s sort of like POS promotions that we all learned about in Marketing 101, but now the point of sale is anywhere! The media channels for Trigger Point Marketing are all the usual suspects including Facebook, Twitter, email and SMS. Two that are getting a lot of attention at the moment are QR and NFC codes.

I wrote about the similarities and differences in February when Google dumped QR codes in Places listings for NFC codes. NFC codes are operationally more complex, requiring a Places decal to be delivered to the local retail establishment. The program has been on a steady roll-out since April of this year. NFC have a lot of potential advantages, including tap-and-go payments, but for now QR codes are more accessible to the individual marketer or business. All you need is a free reader and qrcode creator and there are many of those available on the web.

Wilson’s slide shows some applications and there are many more. Home Depot has partnered with Martha Stewart’s lines to post QR codes in their stores—the POS concept again. When a shopper uses a smart device to scan the code he is taken you to the appropriate web page on one of the MSLO sites for detailed product information. That’s pretty cool for the US, but the really visionary application is Tesco’s virtual stores in Japanese subway stations. Here’s a video that you really should see. The US isn’t there yet in several ways, but if busy Japanese commuters love the concept can Europe and the US be far behind?

Your basic QR code has also gone social. Here’s one (yes, I made it myself and it wasn’t hard). I thought about putting it on my blog, but I remembered Wilson’s advice that it’s silly to expect people who are sitting at a computer to grab their mobile phone and scan a QR code on the screen. I settled for a simple “Follow Me on Twitter” icon for this blog, but try this tag for yourself to see how it works.

I was interested in an article on iMedia Connection this morning opining that the QR code might be dead. My experience parallels Sean X Cummings' informal survey; few people understand them and that's a problem. It would be resolved over time with wise use that adds customer value. One of his points is that agencies are using them stupidly, on moving buses for example. That certainly doesn't help the cause.

For my own part, I’m off to order new business cards with a QR code on them! What other applications can you think of that provide genuine value?

Article first published as Using QR Codes to Trigger Retail Sales on Technorati.

Barcode Marketing II-Creating My Own Barcode

In part 1 of this saga, I advanced my knowledge about using smartphone apps in shopping and promotional settings. What I was really looking for, though, was the answer to the question, “Can I do this myself?” Not that anyone cares that much, except that if I can do it, anyone can!

First, the terminology. The series of lines known as bar codes are featured on all products that move in distribution channels today, and they are essential to maintaining inventory all along the supply chain. However, in spite of the fact that they hold a large amount of data, they became too small for newer applications like mobile shopping and promotion. A new generation was introduced, the 2D or matrix code. I first misinterpreted this as saying that the QR code and the familiar bar code were different animals. Not so, as this list shows. There are a variety of 2D codes and there is no real standardization. Selecting one that can be accessed by the most common readers is key, as I suggested in the previous post. As a commenter suggested, standardization is needed—and I heartily agree.

Note that the Barcode generator page contains a barcode generator that appears to be useful only if you have a numerical barcode already. If you don’t, this post tells you how to get one. If you want “free,” it is not necessarily unique and just for your own use, say in a retail store to maintain inventory. I’m also not convinced that “free” is as easy as this post suggests, although there are low cost solutions available.

I used the Kaywa QR code generator to create the QR code shown in this post, on the sidebar, and at the bottom of the page (same qr image, different sizes for different placements). It is one of the solutions featured by Mashable, which has written extensively about barcodes. See the demo slideshow on their post to get started. I use the text option in order to get a message into the code.

My own experience so far has been twofold:
1. Not all codes work on all scanners. In many cases it appears that the code has to be registered with the reader’s own database to register properly.
2. Changing the size of my code made a difference in readability. I’m told that the code is more readable if it’s on a white background—thanks, Charles.

Another piece of personal experience is also puzzling. I have had good luck reading QR codes in print media. Lynkee is my favorite reader, although I’m finding print codes generally easy to read. Reading the codes on paper seems to be easier than reading them on screen; maybe that’s the white border issue.

That said, I’m sorry that Google Places has eliminated the ability to print out a QR code poster from its listings. That was easy, and it worked for me. According to ReadWriteWeb, Google is moving to NFC technology in partnership with MasterCard and Visa, working on an e-wallet, apparently.

You’ll see more QR codes around. Home Depot has just started a promotion—in print and in store—using the Scanbuy solution. It will be worth following, but I’m interested in DIY efforts.

Anyone in the mood to make their own QR code poster for their blog or office or store window?