Amazon, Apple, eBay, Facebook and Google – known as the Tech Titans to some – continue to set the agenda with their continuous stream of mobile business initiatives. In fact, consumers embrace and, in some cases, expect many of the same mobility resources they’ve experienced through the Titans from the retailers they frequent.

Savvy retailers need to follow the Titans’ lead, according to SAS Retail Executive Advisor Lori Schafer and Bernie Brennan, former National Retail Federation Chairman.

Schafer and Brennan, authors of Branded: How Retailers Engage Customers with Social Media and Mobility, shared valuable “next steps” for mobile success with a standing-room-only crowd of roughly 1,000 retailers and other retail industry executives during a Super Session at the 102nd NRF Annual Conference and Expo. They are:

• Develop a customer-friendly, high-quality mobile web site and easy-to-use apps.
• Learn to price match when appropriate, but also develop a unique business “offense” including geo-fencing because showrooming is here to stay.
• In-store Wi-Fi is a requirement. Don’t fear it; instead, leverage the opportunity it presents.
• Become more credible as an omnichannel retailer with mobile POS options.
• Learn which mobile wallet strategy works.
• Take big data, high-performance analytics seriously. The Tech Titans leverage both successfully, and so can any retailer.