Ice cream chain Cold Stone Creamery has rolled out a mobile-optimized site to let consumers order cakes while on the go.

Cold Stone Creamery is rolling out the mobile site after seeing that a number of consumers access its Web ordering site via mobile. Cold Stone Creamery tapped OLO Online Ordering for this initiative.

“Our mobile site was a simple way for us to cater to our busy, time-conscious customer,” said Jana Schneider, director of marketing at Cold Stone Creamery, Scottsdale, AZ.

“This new platform is all about making online ordering even easier for our on-the-go customers, and we’re always looking to make ordering a Cold Stone ice cream cake as easy as possible for our customers so that they will do it over and over again,” she said.

Cold Stone Creamery is an international ice cream franchise that operates more than 1,500 locations in 16 countries.

Icing on the cake
The mobile-optimized site – coldstonecakes.mobi– lets users order a cake and pick up in-store.

To order a cake, users can enter their ZIP code or use the device’s GPS to find a nearby location.

Users can select one of the company’s signature cakes or create their own.

Consumers can also order cupcakes, pies and ice cream cookies via the mobile Web.

Users can select the size of their cake and personalize it with a special message and choose a color they like. 

Users can pick up their treats in-store 24 hours after placing their order.

Consumers can find nearby stores to pick up their cakes from

The mobile site also features a click-to-call function that consumers can use to contact specific locations.

“The mobile site is just the first step for us of entering into the mobile arena,” Ms. Schneider said.

“We want to make sure we are providing convenience to our customers, and we felt the mobile site was an important initiative to begin with,” she said.

Mobile pick-up
By replicating its popular cake ordering site for mobile, Cold Stone Creamery recognizes that the medium is crucial to grabbing the most sales by making the cake ordering process easy.

“A Web site is usually the first step for most of the brands we work with, but many companies are now going to a mobile site to offer another option for consumers,” said Evan Sanchez, vice president of client services at OLO Online Ordering, New York.

Cold Stone Creamery is not the only chain expanding its services via mobile.

Domino’s Pizza recently launched an iPad application in both Britain and the United States that let consumers customize and order their pizza pie (see story).

In particular, OLO Online Ordering believes that a mobile Web site is a smart move for Cold Stone Creamery instead of a mobile app because it makes sense for the company looking to expand from Web to mobile.

“Mobile Web provides a platform-agnostic perspective and can be used as an initial step to determine if a brand later wants to move into mobile apps,” Mr. Sanchez said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is editorial assistant on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York