Sports and fitness retailer Dick’s Sporting Goods has launched a video-rich interactive catalog application designed to make researching and purchasing football gear easier for customers.

The 2012 Football catalog app for the iPad features interactive photos of gear to highlight product attributes for customers while in-app videos help the retailer showcase products in context. Each page includes a “Buy Now” button, which opens the Dick’s Sporting Goods Web site and enables users to purchase equipment without leaving the app.

“Customers are increasingly flocking to the iPad and we want to be out in front in understanding how this will influence and shape behavior,” said  Zack Duncan, marketing category manager for team sports and fitness at Dick’s Sporting Goods, Pittsburgh, PA.

“A recent Pew study indicates that 34 percent of all High School students own a tablet and 70 percent of those tablets are iPads,” he said. “We want to be present in the space where our customers are.

“Furthermore, the catalog app allows a wealth of information to be contained in a highly portable place. This is not only useful for our customers but is also helpful for our thousands of store associates who need to be up to speed on the latest product innovations to help serve the athletes that they work with every day.”

Shopping tool
The app showcases football cleats, equipment and apparel and was developed with Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite.

Scrolling frames and nested overlays are integrated to provide significant product information on a single page and enable users to compare items side by side without having to flip from one page to another.

Using Adobe SiteCatalyst, the retailer can understand buying behavior in the app, optimize tablet content and integrate the analytics across its other channels to create a unified view of its multichannel business.

The Football 2012 app is the latest example of how retailers are responding to the growth in iPad adoption and how users are embracing the iPad as a tool to help with their shopping needs.

Retailers are seeing strong results from these initial efforts, with a recent Adobe study finding that the average order size was 20 percent higher on a tablet when compared to orders placed through a retailer’s Web site, and 53 percent higher on a tablet when compared to orders placed on a smartphone.

“Retailers are integrating tablet apps into their omnichannel retailing strategies to drive incremental revenue – through integration with their eCommerce sites – build brand loyalty, and stay on the leading edge of innovation,” said Dave Dickson, senior product marketing manager at Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, San Jose, CA.

“As they are planning tablet catalogs, retailers should examine how the lean-back form factor of tablet devices influences the shopping experience,” he said. “For example, while Web sites primarily allow products to be featured individually, the tablet form factor allows catalogs to construct a lifestyle narrative around merchandise, and feature it in context of its use environment, and, by doing so, inspire the customer to purchase.”

Driving incremental revenue
Dick’s Sporting Goods is looking to drive incremental revenue via the app as well learn about iPad catalog apps with an eye towards a bigger roll out in the future.

This is the first time that Dick’s Sporting Goods has brought its products to consumers via an app. In 2011, the retailer launched an app to support the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open — a PGA Champions Tour golf event — which provides tournament news and information.

“The app takes our popular Football catalog and makes it a fun and interactive experience,” Dick’s Sporting Goods’ Mr. Duncan said. “The product interactivity and the number of video assets make this different in the digital catalog space.”

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York