With 54.3 percent of 127 respondents citing more than 250 retail locations, the survey indicated the following: • “Wi-Fi Hotspot for Customer Access is the top W-iFi initiative with 30 percent of the respondents listing it as a current use of in-store Wi-Fi, and 38% planning on adding this capability in the next 24 months. • Interest in "Self-shopping" is exploding as a use for in-store Wi-Fi, with 5.5 percent of respondents listing it as a current use of in-store Wi-Fi, but 25 percent saying they plan to add the capability in the next 24 months. • Advanced mobile application deployment is on the rise, with 30-35 percent (ea.) noting that they plan to deploy advanced applications including in-store product search and reviews, in-store product inventory, mobile ordering, couponing and location-aware couponing in the next 24 months.
Aruba (NASDAQ: ARUN) developed and fielded a survey to 4,000 CIOs, IT directors and network managers between December 16, 2010 and January 7, 2011.
The Aruba Wi-Fi solution for in-store mobile marketing consists of: • Secure and Scalable In-Store Wi-Fi Aruba’s 802.11n Wi-Fi solutions include an ICSA-certified stateful firewall to protect retail networks from public access, and adaptive coverage management to ensure uninterrupted operation even when hundreds of customers connect at the same time in the same store. Per user firewall policy enforcement allows quality of service (QoS), bandwidth limits, and time-of-day and location restrictions based on the relationship between the customer and the retailer. • In-store Customer Wi-Fi Engagement Aruba's Amigopod software enables retailers to securely register customers and reliably deliver personalized access and targeted messages including special merchandise offers and advertisements to them. • Wi-Fi Optimized Smartphone Applications Collaboration between Aruba and its partner and mobile commerce leader Digby enables retailers to offer a rich and personalized shopping experience to its customers with smartphone applications. Performance and location intelligence available through Aruba’s Wi-Fi improve application responsiveness and increase the relevance of offers made to customers inside the store. • Presence and Location Intelligence Aruba’s 802.11n Wi-Fi provides real-time presence information to enable store-level message targeting. Aruba's partnership with Nearbuy Systems allows retailers to get granular, product and area level message targeting as well as in-store navigation capabilities.