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As an analyst, you have these moments every once in awhile when you’re on a call with a vendor and the guy on the other end pulls out a statement that literally takes your breath away. Sometimes it takes your breath away because you are fighting very hard not to laugh right out loud in his face. Sometimes it’s because the statement reveals a depth of ignorance about the retail industry that, thankfully, I only rarely encounter.

But sometimes, the statement so flies in the face of what I see trending that it causes me to stop and take stock. Am I missing something here? How could someone else’s worldview in the industry be so diametrically opposed to what I believe is true?

I had one of those moments about a month ago, and I’ve been trying to validate whether the miss is mine or the vendor’s ever since. I’ve come to the conclusion that my view and his – truly diametrically opposed – both exist.

From the title of this piece, you might’ve guessed the topic. It’s whether or not retailers need mobile apps. My view, and one confirmed by interactions with retailers, is that mobile apps are crucial to future retailing success. A consumer can log in and stay logged in, which means that activity there is more likely to not be anonymous. And for good reason for the consumer – she doesn’t have to enter all her account details if she buys something. It can all be saved as preferences, a valuable benefit when dealing with the cramped real estate of a smartphone. Retailers can, with the appropriate opt-ins, send alerts and use the phone’s location. They also potentially have an easier time using the phone’s inherent capabilities, like its camera.

I think this holds true for both smartphone and tablet apps. I’ve heard retailers – retailers who are pursuing mobile apps, by the way – say that they see these tools as opportunities to deliver a richer, more personalized experience to consumers.

And then that guy – the guy on the vendor briefing call – said, “Retailers aren’t investing in apps. Mobile sites are the future – consumers don’t really use apps.”

What? Really? What the heck did I miss?

I don’t have any particular access to any retailer’s data about mobile site usage vs. mobile apps. I know that some retailers saw a dramatic shift in traffic sources at the early stages of adoption of smartphones and later, tablets. But there are a lot of problems with looking at consumer use of apps vs. sites and making major investment and engagement strategy decisions about which to support and which to abandon. Here’s just a few:

• Retailers’ consumer mobile apps – tablet or smartphone, both apply equally here – frankly, suck. Sure, there are exceptions to the rule. But I’ve spent a summer with a lot of retailers’ mobile apps and I’m telling you, retailers either don’t have them at all, or what they do have is barely on par with the mobile site – which is just a pale reflection of the full eCommerce site. It’s no wonder consumers allegedly don’t use them – that would be like using your half-blind, 85-year-old grandmother to provide driving directions, when you could be using a GPS instead.

• Even when retailers’ mobile apps don’t suck, they underwhelm. Mobile apps need to provide utility above and beyond what you can get from a mobile site. I admit, half the time I have a retailer’s mobile app, I’m not logged into the app, but more for the plain fact that I can’t remember my password and I don’t have it in a way that’s easily accessible from my phone. But I’ll tell you one app I am logged in on, and that I have repeatedly gone to the trouble of looking up my password to achieve this state: Facebook. And I’m not even anything near a power Facebook user.

Why have I gone to this trouble? Because logging into the Facebook app makes it much easier to share pictures with my friends. The pictures I mostly take with the camera on my phone. The lesson for retailers? Provide enough utility that it’s worth it to look up your password from your desktop computer – or at least make it really easy to retrieve that password from the mobile app. About the only retailers’ apps that I have where I have gone to this trouble are Starbucks, Amazon, and Target. Two of them because they are places I shop often enough it was worth it to remember how to log in, and one because of their so-easy-to-use payment feature.

• Even when retailers go to the trouble of delivering something cool, they fall flat when it comes to mobile. We found this out when Steve Rowen & I were evaluating retailers’ digital gift card capabilities. Some retailers had very slick digital gift card buying on their full eCommerce site, but take it to the phone and either it was completely missing from site and app, or one or the other didn’t offer the capability. I’m assuming some early on architecture decision around mobile prevented the retailers from “mobilizing” their digital gift card offering – but what does that mean for future cool new things? Not much, at least when it comes to the app.
  

Which leads us right back to point 1: for consumers, what’s the point? Apps offer the opportunity for deeper engagement with customers passionate enough to keep your app on their phone. But that’s only true when the retailer has gone to the effort to create something worth getting passionate about. And replicating the eCommerce site – sans anything cool or interesting – is definitely not worth getting passionate about.

It is apparent to me now that too many retailers have no idea how to channel consumers’ brand enthusiasm, and worse, don’t have the process or attention span in place to figure out how to create that enthusiasm in the first place. It’s a lot harder than just stacking products on shelves and waiting for consumers to come in the door and buy them.

But ain’t that true of all retail these days? I think it is.