Sears, Lowe's, Cabela's, Guess Take Mobile App Honors

By Adam Blair
The third annual RIS Mobile App of the Year Awards spotlighted technologies that are literally in motion. Cabela's, Guess, Lowe's and Sears Holdings are using smart mobile and tablet devices for customer-facing, store productivity, management and enterprise-level functions that were barely on the industry's radar a few years ago. The winning companies are also seeing tangible, real-world benefits from their moves into the mobile space.

Nominations for the 2012 awards, presented at the RIS Retail Technology Conference last week in Orlando, FL, were judged by the publication's senior editorial staff and Chris Hazelton, research director for mobile and wireless at The 451 Group.

The 2012 Mobile App of the Year Award winners are:

Category: Enterprise Excellence
Lowe's mobileDART
Store managers use this iPhone and iPad app from MicroStrategy to monitor store performance KPIs, including details related to product departments and categories, inventory and customer credit applications. District managers use the app to more effectively manage their assigned stores. They can immediately navigate from the home screen to a top-down view of all the stores in their district to get a sense of the top and bottom performers in their region.

Category: Innovation
Guess Engagement and M-Commerce App
This app integrates data from the Guess List customer loyalty program with Facebook data, gleaned with the help of tools from MicroStrategy. Guess uses this combined information to identify and save new customer segments, and the retailer can also use the app to push out personalized content, offers and perks to targeted customer segments. The app also provides shoppers with the ability to virally share offers, news and product recommendations on their social networks.

Category: Shopping Experience
Cabela's
The retailer's mobile-enabled website and iPhone and Android apps, which use the Digby Mobile Platform, link store, Web, catalog and mobile channels to create a seamless cross-channel shopping experience. Shoppers can scan barcodes and QR codes, which are now included in Cabela's catalogs, to view detailed product information plus videos, ratings, reviews and offers that are unique to Cabela's. Shoppers using the app to provide their own ratings and reviews drive sales, minimize returns and increase customer loyalty, and also provide Cabela's with valuable insights into both what consumers buy and how they shop.

Category: Store Operations
Sears SHC Connect
This mobile hybrid application, delivered on ruggedized iPods and iPads, serves store associates in 450 Sears and Kmart locations as the single point of entry for tasks, applications, information and reports. Employees get immediate access to their daily task lists and internal social media, and store stats such as sales performance are integrated with WFM tools. Sears' IT department maintains real-time views and management control over the devices and can tailor device profiles to the needs of specific users. AirWatch provides the app solution plus mobile device management functionality.

For related content: RIS Reveals 2012 Mobile App Award Finalists

2011 Mobile App of the Year Awards