October 18 2007

2shop4.com - buy a product from an ad with a text message

it's old hat nowadays to send a text (SMS) in response to an advert or billboard to receive further information. A new service goes a major step further - you can now buy the product directly via a text message.

The new service from 2shop4 allows a customer, once registered with the service, to text the product code of an advertised item to the system. The system then confirms the product details and availability and the customer sends a second text with their personal identification number to confirm the transaction.

Billing is against stored credit card details - very much in the way that London commuters can pay the daily congestion charge by SMS.

Saatchi & Saatchi will manage  sales of 2shop4 licences to brand owners, retailers, all principle advertising and media networks.

Peter Lovatt, vice chairman, Saatchi & Saatchi, who will run 2shop4 @ Saatchi, said:

“2shop4 is a revolutionary new way to shop offering consumers a fast and convenient way to buy what they want, when they want.  With just two texts from their mobile phone, people can snap up whatever they see in an ad, whether it’s TV, in a newspaper or magazine, on a poster, in store or online.  It’s a complete win-win for brand owners and consumers.”

Of course, he would say that. There's a question as to whether there's an appetite for signing up to another service and early adoption will be patchy and driven by the desirability of the products carrying the code. In much the same way as a new technology needs software to drive adoption we'll need to see what S&S deliver as the Dire Straits album to the CD player party.

That said, there's clearly scope for further integration of payments and mobiles (we've already seen interesting m-vouchering by i-movo, for example). The UK lags behind the far east in its adoption of mobile commerce - whether it's the extraordinary integration of web+messaging+mobile in Korea, or Oyster-type integration from Octopus in Hong Kong - but this clearly will not last forever. With more mobile phone accounts in the UK than there are people the move to m-commerce is simply a matter of "when" rather than "whether".

by Ian Jindal