[img_assist|nid=25172|title=|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=119|height=150]“For the first time, retailers are having technology done to them, rather than using it on the consumer,” said Sean McKee, head of eCommerce at Schuh. “Now were dealing with a customer whos hyper-informed, and in charge of the conversation. And mobile is a big part of that context.”

In his talk at the Mobile Retail Summit this morning, McKee explained how mobile fits into the strategy of a retailer like Schuh, which has a focus on selling products at full price.

“We do mobile our way, in a way that fits our business,” he said. “Its as important to say no to  mobile as say it is to say yes. Pushing vouchers to customers as they walk past stores – as a full-price business, thats not for us.”

Schuh were a ctually a very early adopter of mCommerce. It initially launched a .mobi site back in 2008, which generated “no sales whatsoever”.

“We were far too early to the party,” said McKee. “We had our fingers burned, and it took until 2011 to start again on mobile.”

However, mobile now accounts for a large chunk of Schuhs business. 28 per cent of its traffic comes from smartphones and 18 per cent from tablet, while smartphones make up 15 per cent of sales, and tablets 17 per cent.

In 2011, Schuh initially “did what everyone was doing” and launched a free iOS app. Later that year it launched a mobile-optimised site, “and that was the moment that mobile really crystallised for us”.

The mobile site generates 15 times more sales than the app, which McKee said has helped the retailer make the decision not to develop any more apps.

Instead, its focusing on sites – in 2012, Schuh launched a tablet-optimised site, which generated £1m of sales in its first eight weeks. McKee said the retailer is about to arive at the tipping point where its mobile device traffic overtakes desktop traffic for the first time, and beyond that it foresees its next tipping point as mobile sales overtaking desktop sales.