This is part two of our coverage of the Mobile Retail Summit – covering the second section of the day, Driving Footfall. You can read part one, On Device, here, and part three, on In-Store, here, and four, on The Future, here.

With the On Device section of our Mobile Retail Summit all wrapped up, it was time to move onto Driving Footfall – concentrating on how mobile can be used to getting shoppers into stores. 

Driving Footfall opened with a Stat Attack from Local Data Companys Matthew Hopkinson, painting a grim picture of the high street, with 14.3 per cent of shops left vacant. But eCommerce and mCommerce arent threatening retail – theyre supporting it. 41 per cent of consumers research products then buy them online, but 51% research online, then buy in store.

Matt Gierhart from Ogilvy talked through the Freshers Week mobile coupon campaign that Ogilvy ran with Wetherspoons. The case study seemed to catch the rooms attention, and its easy to see why – the campaign achieved a 65 per cent redemption rate, compared to the usual expectations of 10-15 per cent.

The section closed with a panel discussion, moderated by Russell Buckley, with StrikeAds Alex Rahamen, Adfonics Paul Childs, Linking Mobiles David Fieldhouse and Ripplls Doug Chisholm. The talk threw up a lot of points, on everything from price comparison to location-based coupons, but it was perhaps all best summed up by Russell Buckley: “This is the first time retailers have had to compete in their own stores”.

So that was Driving Footfall. Next up is In Store, but more importantly, its time for lunch and networking.

And remember – you can keep up to date with all these facts, figures, and case studies on Twitter by using the #mretailsummit hashtag.