Three reasons your connected store needs a mobile-first foundation

When retailers design a connected store strategy, they should build it around mobile shoppers and associates.

About a year ago, I wrote a column exhorting retailers to meet their customers where they are. While I unfortunately encouraged retailers to launch metaverse commerce efforts, I will still stand by the general principle of adopting the technologies your customers are using.

When customers come into your brick-and-mortar store, they’re using their mobile device. Here are three reasons you should respond with a “mobile-first” design approach to your connected store experience that uses a small-screen interface as its foundation and then scales up. 

Customers are already mobile first

Your customers are using mobile in a big way, including as their primary means of accessing digital retail content and spaces. According to Pew Research, 97% of all U.S. consumers and roughly 90% of U.S. consumers 18 and up own a smartphone.

And they’re using those phones to shop. According to recent data from MobiLoud, 76% of U.S. e-commerce is conducted via mobile device, which MobiLoud said is responsible for helping to drive a 10.5% year-over-year e-commerce growth rate in the U.S. from 2024 to 2025.

If you’re an e-commerce retailer (and let’s be honest, at this point who isn’t to some degree), more than three-quarters of your online business is conducted via mobile device. Designing your user experience for those devices first should be a pretty easy decision.

Easily extend omnichannel – without infrastructure

There is a lot of talk about "phygital" retailing, connected stores, and other buzzwords that essentially mean blending the brick-and-mortar and digital customer experiences into a seamless omnichannel environment.

There are many different ways retailers can accomplish this feat, including kiosks, frictionless shopping based on computer vision and sensors, and robots. However, all those methods require a substantial investment in supporting physical infrastructure to extend the omnichannel experience into your store. 

But with a mobile-first approach that makes an app or mobile site the crux of your omnichannel experience strategy, you can bring that connected environment into your stores using the customers’ own mobile devices. 

Many shoppers are already using their smartphones in-store to look up product details, get reviews, and even "showroom" (instantly comparing your prices to those of your competitors). 

By tapping into your customers’ in-store mobile activities by providing them app- and mobile site-based connectivity, you can make your customers’ shopping experience easier while also guiding it to a result where you save sales by offering personalization, extended product access, and convenience.

Your employees are mobile first, too

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that your associates come from the exact same pool of consumers as your shoppers. They are just as likely to own a smartphone and use it as their primary means of digital interaction.

Similarly to extending your omnichannel environment into stores for customers with a mobile-first approach, you can provide the same seamlessly blended store environment for your employees. 

Numerous retailers provide associates with apps that enable them to look up “endless aisle” inventory, check out customers from any point in the store, and perform clienteling tasks such as checking shopper behavioral history and loyalty data to provide superior customer service.

[READ MORE: Walmart equips store associates with mobile AI tools]

In addition, retailers should seriously consider migrating their recruitment/onboarding/training efforts to a mobile platform, if they haven’t already. 

As  7-Eleven head of talent acquisition Rachel Allen explained in a recent exclusive interview, since unifying the recruitment and hiring process for its 7-Eleven and Speedway banners on one tech stack that enables QR code- and text-enabled application and interview scheduling, it has automated 95% of the hiring process while drastically increasing speed-to-hire and reducing applicant ghosting.

And when training is delivered via mobile device, employees can view training modules at their own pace, rewatch videos as needed, and participate in gamification and other features that enhance and reinforce the process.