The EasyAsk eCommerce Mobile Edition service lets companies expand their mobile commerce offerings. Businesses can also provide mobile-optimized search, cross-sell and up-sell merchandising capabilities that convert mobile prospects into buyers and bridge them to brick-and-mortar stores.

“EasyAsk is enabling ecommerce companies to deliver a complete mobile experience to their customers, not just a shrunken version of their current Web site,” said Craig Bassin, CEO of EasyAsk, Burlington, MA. “We’re delivering all of the functionality of EasyAsk eCommerce Edition, in a mobile platform.

“The target demographic is enterprise and mid-market companies with an ecommerce presence,” he said. “This will be very attractive to companies that have both ecommerce and brick-and-mortar business, as they can use online and mobile search and merchandising to engage with customers online and also drive in-store purchases.

EasyAsk  provides natural language search and analysis software for ecommerce Web sites and corporate applications.

Mobile navigation
Companies can customize their Web pages and mobile visitors are automatically detected and rerouted to the mobile version of the site.

The platform can optimize the shopping experience to any specific handset by detecting the model of the phone and matching it with a database of handsets.

Additionally, the platform is integrated with services from the company’s main Web site for cross promotions, such as finding specific items in the brick-and-mortar store.

It also delivers discount or cross-sell offers to the device. 

“Customers will be able to search for products on their phones using plain English,” Mr. Bassin said. “For instance, they can type, ‘show me woman’s size 8 long sleeve dresses under $100’ and the mobile Web site will return highly relevant results.

“If the company doesn’t have any long sleeve dresses, the customer won’t see a no results page,” he said. “Instead, the company can choose to return a combination of short sleeve dresses and matching cardigans, or long sleeve shirts and skirts.

“In addition to mobile-optimized search, EasyAsk eCommerce Mobile Edition also includes dynamic navigation to help customers refine search results and find what they’re looking for even faster.”

Mobile commerce success
According to the company, for businesses to be successful, there needs to be an ecommerce presence that needs to be more than a repurposed Web site.

In addition, companies should take advantage of the mobile ecosystem and services, while also offering a consumer experience across all channels, including mobile.

“Mobile commerce is changing as a mechanism to engage customers in a 360-degree fashion,” Mr. Bassin said. “As mentioned earlier, this will be especially important for large retailers with both online and brick-and-mortar operations. 

“Also, ecommerce outfits that sell to highly mobile professionals can attempt to capture purchases immediately,” he said. “Imagine a consumer discussing a specific Bluetooth headset with a friend. 

“If an electronics firm is savvy, it will use mobile commerce to capture that purchase at that moment, rather than having the consumer wait until they get home and have a chance to change their mind or go to another retailer.”