Alonovo - Shopping More Intelligently
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 08.23.05
Joel Makower writes about Alonovo, an online marketplace/shopping portal that "adds value" to your shopping experience by giving you information about the company you are buying from. From Makower's post: "'Essentially what we’ve done is taken the catalog of Amazon products and through our portal providing directly into the consumer experience the socially responsible ratings of manufacturers and merchants,' explains Alonovo founder George A. Polisner, who left a long career at Oracle to start the company. Polisner and his team have partnered with KLD Research & Analytics, a pioneering, well-respected socially responsible investing research firm, whose databases of company social performance are widely used by pension funds and other institutional investors." Alonovo launched yesterday (August 22, 2005), so its still quite young and incomplete. We'll keep an eye on it and see how it develops. Hopefully, it will help many people make more responsible buying decisions and the concept of showing environmental, ethical and social information alongside products is something that other stores will copy.
::Alonovo, via ::Joel Makower
Fiendishly clever. In a way it's a "negative screen" as it excludes most products from the universe of available ones. At the same time it's also a "positive screen", making it easier for a niche market to find the good stuff quickly. I have a hunch there is going to be a huge dust up if Branding is one of the criteria. Could it take customers away from the normal interface and thereby affect sales? I can imagine dissed vendors seeing it the way a restaurant owner views a sandwich cart on the sidewalk in front of his establishment.
Mall information now on every customers phone.
A great way to help customers decide where to shop is to show them what is available before they hit the malls – on the screen of their mobile phones.
Bluepulse has released patented new mobile phone technology called Mobile Mall which puts shopping mall specials and other information such as movie times onto just about any mobile phone screen. Customers don’t even have to be in the mall at the time.
Information is easily controlled by the mall management and it works anywhere in the world where mobiles work. Shoppers can be at home, on the bus or sipping coffee in the mall and can check out the shop specials or movies times and see what’s coming up in the mall. Just about everyone has a mobile phone these days and customers only receive what they request. Nothing is pushed to them and it is not spam.
It operates on the normal mobile network and does not use SMS. There is no cost to the user apart from any carrier charges. Customers have control over what they receive and it’s easy to set up and use.
Customers also get free access to news, weather, horoscopes, sports and much more plus Bluepulses free integrated Instant Messenger enabling them to send messages from their phone to a computer or another mobile.
A level up from Mobile Mall, if the mall has a Bluetooth network, is their Wireless Mobile Mall which offers the ultimate in customer service where customers can be directed step by step around the mall to shops, toilets, ATMs, lifts etc, see where their friends are located and even send free messages.
The companies experience behind these two products has ensured that they are designed to help the customer, retailers and Mall Managers. Each one is individualised with the malls name and logo on the top of each screen. This really is the ultimate in customer service.
No doubt, a customers decision where to shop just got a whole lot easier!
For more information, contact stuarth@bluepulse.com.au