Apple, the maker of the iPhone and the Macintosh, wasn't an exhibitor at the National Retail Federation's 99th Annual Convention in New York this week, but you wouldn't have thought that after walking the expo floor. There seemed to be new iPhone apps at every other booth. There was a vendor selling a Mac-specific POS system and a few of the booths even looked a bit like iPods.
A very informal poll revealed that the number of iPhones used by retail and other NRF conference attendees is way up over last year. This is backed by the fact the nearly every vendor I talked with has one or more iPhone applications available or in development. There are now apps for everything the busy retail executive could want, including competitive price checks, reviews, dashboard essentials and many more.
Oracle came out with the Retail Shopping Assistant, a consumer-facing application that helps with in-store shopping. Sterling Commerce now offers a series of new applications to enable anytime, anywhere access to capabilities of its key offerings as part of the company's strategy to extend its collaborative applications and integration solutions to mobile devices. There were new apps from Intel and many others, and the companies that didn't have them on display were talking about them in development.
One other point: The number of apps designed to drive business to their stores and websites offered by the retailers directly or through networks is also growing dramatically. During the recent Christmas season, Nordstrom, Macy's and other retail chains offered their products through Nearby Now's Holiday Gift Guide, an app that lets shoppers select featured products and either put them on hold for pickup at a store or order through the retailer's website. Shoebuy.com has an app that lets shoppers buy products from Shoebuy's online catalog.
Discussion Question: Apple Stores have certainly had an impact the retail landscape. Will iPhone apps change retail as well?