New Partnership Enhances Mobile Commerce Offerings in Italy

By all accounts, mobile commerce is on the rise. New apps are being developed left and right that allow users to shop for products, or download coupons and deals wherever they take their smartphones. Jumping in on the fray is CardMobili, which has just signed a partnership agreement with Telecom Italia (News - Alert) Digital Solutions with the intention of launching a new mobile digital service throughout Italy.

The app resulting from the partnership will focus primarily on simplistic, streamlined mass marketing offerings that include gift cards commercial membership cards, user loyalty programs, punch cards, and email, text and other variants of push communications. Other forms of mass communication will contain greater personalization in an effort to target specific consumers; for example, those who have not shopped at a specific store for an extended period of time, and may need a reminder or incentive to come in.  In doing so, the platform gives small and medium sized businesses greater availability to the digital marketing tools they need to stand up to larger enterprises.

"Our aim is successfully to test a full range of cloud-based digital services across marketing, CRM, analytics and engagement, which will truly empower our business customers by giving them tools that were previously only available to large brands and retailers at a premium cost and allowing them to focus on their core businesses," said Claudio Contini, TI Digital Solutions CEO & President.

While primarily aimed at benefiting business customers, the benefits of the new platform—to be tested in a preliminary trial run by TI Digital Solutions—will extend to consumers as well. According to CEO of CardMobili, Helena Leite, "Our solutions can deliver tangible value for merchants and consumers, a fact which is being recognised with TI Digital Solutions' decision to introduce a mobile digital service.”

She added, “Users will benefit from greater convenience and value, while merchants will be able to engage more profitably with customers. Taking just one example—by linking the free mobile apps for customers with multi-channel marketing, the new service can combine to deliver something much more exciting than the sum of its parts—it becomes a fully-fledged intelligent automated CRM. We are delighted to be working with TI Digital Solutions, and look forward to a successful pilot and roll-out across Italy in the future."

In other words, impulse buyers of Italy beware. The mobile marketplace just became even more effective at persuading you to buy stuff on your smartphone.