The company tapped Unbound Commerce to power the mobile site. Consumers can access the mcommerce site by entering  http://m.shopmillerbrewing.com/  on their mobile browser.

“MillerCoors wanted a fast, stable, integrated mobile commerce site that could harness the real-time data of their ecommerce site, but also be a separate, distinct channel for engagement and sales,” said Wilson Kerr, vice president of business development and sales at Unbound Commerce, Boston.

“Having one site resized for all channels makes sense only if consumer engagement and purchasing behavior is identical across all channels, which it is not,” he said.

On-the-go shopping
The new mobile commerce sites features branded merchandise from nearly 20 top beer brands such as Miller High Life, Foster’s, Peroni, Miller Genuine Draft, Grolsch and Pilsner Urquell.

When consumers first access the mobile site, they must enter their date of birth to verify their age.

From there, consumers can browse and shop for products from their favorite Miller family beer brand and check-out right from their smartphone.

“Traffic and metrics are the key to understanding the need for a mobile site,” Mr. Kerr said. “MillerCoors saw mobile-originating traffic growing fast, so it made sense to provide an optimized mobile commerce experience for these loyal customers, rather than have them try to pinch-and-zoom their way through the main site on a smartphone.

“In addition, MillerCoors has many consumer touch points such as packaging, printed marketing materials, and their brewery tours and a mobile commerce site, meaning marketing tools like QR codes can be used to trigger mobile commerce engagement and reward this engagement with mobile-specific deals and specials,” he said.

The mobile site also includes social media links to Facebook and Twitter where they can further connect with the brand.

Moreover, the mobile site includes integrated search features, grid and list view options and a click-to-call functionality.

Consumers can also request a catalog through the optimized site.

According to Unbound Commerce, the backend platform that powers the site also lets MillerCoors build campaign-specific mobile landing pages and link these pages with marketing materials, via a QR code generator feature.

“We are seeing explosive mobile traffic and conversions metrics across our nearly 400 mobile commerce sites, with many reaching the 10-20 percent of sales range,” Mr. Kerr said. “Mobile is no longer a nice-to-have, and there is a real financial impact to not having a dedicated mobile site that can be measured in lost conversions.

“While there is a lot of hype about responsive design these days, we see this as a limiting factor that traps retailers into a one-site-fits-all-channels box out of sync with mobile-specific consumer behavior,” he said.

“More and more clients are using the marketing tools our dashboard comes with to bridge the online and offline worlds and shape offers and deals for their mobile audience.”

Final Take
Rimma Kats is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York