Marissa Louie is an entrepreneur and a thought leader in digital consumerism. Here, she explains the potential in a mobile commercial utopia.
A second wave of commerce is riding to a crest, and the Internet plays the role of supporting actor.
The golden road has been paved by millions of iPhone, iPad, Android, and Blackberry app downloads, virtual goods companies like Yoshikazu Tanaka's $1.6 billion grossing Gree, geolocation services like Foursquare, Gowalla, and Double Dutch, proliferating consumer data sets from Twitter, and trillions of SMS text messages sent around the world.
But these look like penny stocks clinking around inside a revolving echo chamber when compared to something bigger and badder: mobile commerce.
Commerce on the go. Whatever you need, delivered to you wherever you are. And whatever you need, available for pickup. Whether triggered by mobile app, SMS text message, website order, geolocation tracking service, or desktop icon. Pick your poison. No, we aren't talking eBay or Amazon. We are talking real world, real-time commerce that is facilitated as much by the Internet's infrastructure as it is by collaboration with the physical entities we need things from.
Gone are the days of brick-and-mortar versus Internet retailing: I call this new era "Click-and-mortar". Click-and-mortar is based on a fluid relationship between retailers, customers on the go, their mobile devices, and various enablers that act as glue in between. And it is built and distributed on the backbone of the Internet.
The premise of click-and-mortar is to bring services and convenience to our increasingly fast and complicated lifestyles. The idea is to minimize the time we spend waiting for things like packages to be delivered.
Wasting of time has become the #1 public problem for people of all ages in 2010. In contrast, saving time is no longer considered a luxury, but a necessity that helps keep us sane.
In these days of instant gratification, the timing couldn't be more perfect for the mobile commercial utopia to deliver what we want, how we want it, wherever we are. Not only on time, but on budget and with minimal effort.
Mobile commerce is not only the newest economic catalyst that I believe is the future of commerce, but something that will dramatically improve the quality of our lives. HeroEx is just one example: you order things you want delivered in one hour or less via its website, SMS text message, phone call, mobile app, or desktop app. I am excited to see the further unfolding of the mobile commercial utopia -- which is where you, the consumer, are at the center of.
Marissa Louie is the Founder and CEO of HeroEx, San Francisco's affordable 1 hour delivery service. Customers order their favorite items at heroex.com or from select hotel and business partners, and then Delivery Heroes deliver the items anywhere in San Francisco.
She is a member of the Top 40 Under 40, was honored by the California State Legislature for her leadership, has appeared on many press outlets including Forbes, AdRants, CBS, and GQ Korea, and has been interviewed for Marie Claire, Glamour Magazine, and SHAPE Magazine.
Contact her at (510) 375-1941, or email marissa@heroex.com.