Designing Apps for Place and Shopping Behavior Insights

At Skyhook we are continuosly finding ways to gather contextual data with our Wi-Fi location network. Knowing contextual data on users and audiences is a top differentiator for apps and advertising companies. Here are some examples of what Skyhook has been up to spreading the word on context this past week!

Venue Data Infographic: Shopping in the USA

In the spirit of Black Friday, we looked at some of our awesome Venue data to create a Skyhook infographic featured by PSFK about how curated Venue data reveals how Americans shop. As experts in location and context, we are intensely aware of how physical locations and points of interest drive user experiences, especially in the retail industry.

See the full Infographic here.

Designing for Place

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We are rolling out a new UX series called Designing for Place to highlight the key theme of differentiating the app, reducing friction, getting more engagement, monetizing and getting to the user's home screen. Designing for Place is all about how user context about venues and locations can be used to dramatically alter mobile user experiences.

For example, retail apps have features like store finders and online catalogues, which are very useful for users at home or on the go, but what about when they are in the store? In-store modes that help users navigate retail stores or find their favorite items in stock are much more useful to users after they arrive at the retailer—we’re seeing it already with WalMart and Lowes. The element of place will fundamentally change mobile app design for the better. It's all about reducing the friction between the user opening their app and getting the experience they want. We call that Appticipation.

See the first post here.

Podcast: Skyhook Locates Black Friday Deals

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This week, we talked about using location and venue data to make sense of where people shop for Black Friday in a podcast on WSRadio.com. Schneidermike breaks it down further to the city level and gives some insight on shopping in Los Angeles:

Los Angeles heavily overindexes on Jewelry and Apparel stores - 67% overindexing on jewelry stores, 62% overindexing on apparel (18% on mens apparel and 17% on womens apparel).

What is LA lacking in? The city does not have many cookware stores, yet there is a lot of eating out in LA.

People are reading books online or buying them on Amazon, because there is a 96% underindexing on book stores in LA.

What does the data say about shopping in the US? We are seeing a decline in big retail because of places like Amazon. We see more people willing to shop online and therefore mobile spend on advertising is way up to get people into brick and mortar stores. Skyhook enables you to build experiences that reduce friction between opening your phone and getting value. We find out if users are in the store and then build a "Store Mode" that offers them a seperate mobile app experience in the store versus at home.