Walmart’s M-commerce Gave me Baby Blues
I’m going to be a first-time father this fall. I don’t know if I’m the only father-to-be who does this, but when I have to run an errand at a store, I look at the baby items to see what’s cute and useful for our future son. At a local Walmart this past Saturday, I saw an item and had no clue what it was - kind of a cross between a security blanket and a stuffed animal. And there was no description of the item, just that it was a Wishes & Kisses product.
So I grabbed my smartphone and looked the SKU number up on the Walmart site. No luck. Product number, no luck. Searched for Wishes & Kisses, got some items, but not the puppy dog head with the blanket for a body.
I did find it with a search on Google Mobile, but not on the Walmart site. I was upset that it led me to a voluntary recall page, but it turned out it was a coordinating product that causes children to choke. But I did eventually find a product page that told me the product was indeed part stuffed animal, part security blanket.
Needless to say, my mobile experience wasn’t great. Walmart has done a good job making its Website mobile-compatible, but it doesn’t replace a customer service representative on the sales floor.
Needless to say,
May 18th, 2010 at 2:17 am
Amazon Mobile, my man. Take a picture and send it; if the bots can’t recognize the image automatically, they farm it out to the Mechanical Turk human boffins who will give it the old carbon-based college try. Of course, then you may find it on your wish list.
May 18th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
Sweet! Thanks, Brian!