Product Strategy
The Magic Carpet Tablet App will be consumers’ launch point for shopping on their tablet devices. It will make shopping merchant sites easier, more engaging and useful than using native web browsers.
Tablet shopping debuted in the 2011 holiday shopping season, capturing the lion share of ecommerce usage across mobile devices. Categories of products purchased from tablets spanned the consumer spectrum, from apparel and electronics to household goods. Tablet costs restricted users to high income brackets, but indicators point to rapid market penetration as tablet prices fall and word spreads on how enjoyable the form factor is to use. Ecommerce merchants are working on or have already developed mobile and/or tablet versions of their websites, and some have developed merchant branded specific apps. 2012 is looking to be the breakout year for tablet shopping.
However, consumers still prefer to shop via the mobile browser vs. shopping apps. The Magic Carpet Tablet App’s major challenge will be positioning itself as the better alternative to shopping on the native browser. It has to become users’ launch point for tablet shopping by making access to their favorite stores easier than using browser bookmarks, making sharing with friends easier than using website share buttons, and making purchasing easier than using a tablet on-screen keyboard. The added value of quick and simple access combined with a compelling user interface and shopping features that aren’t available in native web browsers will capture users for the Magic Carpet Table App and steer them away from native web browsers and retailer apps.
User Interface Mockups
Two things are needed to capture user mind-share:
1. A super compelling user interface that produces a “Wow” reaction and takes full advantage of the tablet form factor (swipe and pinch actions, emphasizing touch and minimizing keyboarding, borderless TV-like full screen display).
2. A sticky, enhanced online shopping feature set including storage of user information and history that introduces a high switching cost to users who get engaged with the app.
Home Screen
- Prepopulated with visual bookmarks to popular stores. One tap to add a new store. Drag to the trash can to remove. Drag to change positions. Multiple “home” screens accessed by sideways swipe so you can have more than nine visual bookmarks.
- Tap visual bookmark to launch into merchant website with added Affiliate code
- Search box for finding products (comparison shopping engine) or finding stores
- Top bar controls: Settings, Add Store and Trash
- “New Today” sideways tab swipes open to reveal Daily Deals, Local Deals, Promotions, etc.
Merchant Website Screen
- Embedded browser gives the same user experience as native browser. User’s store login and account info works the same.
- Drag to scroll
- Pinch to zoom and shrink
- Keyboard appears to type
- Etc.
- Side panel provides easy to access enhanced shopping features
- Side panel buttons light up and/or animate when comparison shopping offers, coupons, chat, etc. are available.
- User can modify order or add/remove additional button features as available
- All purchases commissioned by Affiliate linkage
Side Panel Features
Back to Home Screen
Price Check – lights up/animates when there is a comparison price match for the product the user is currently viewing
Coupon / Deal Alert – lights up/animates when there is a coupon or deal related to the product or merchant the user is currently visiting.
Sharing – one tap to send the current page link to Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
Chat – tap to open a chat session on various IM networks
Favorites – bookmarking function
Snapshot – tap to take a screenshot of the current webpage. Marketed as a way to capture Thank You pages after purchase for easy archiving and tracking
Form Fill – tap to enter billing, shipping and credit card info into the app; swipe to the merchant page to fill in purchase info. Marketed as a much easier way to buy than typing with the table keyboard.
Web Navigation – tap to enter a new URL to visit to speed the shopping experience.
Price Check Feature
- Price Check button lights up when a comparison price has been found.
- User taps button to show prices.
- Tap on comparison price to launch new embedded browser without losing original place.
Coupons and Deals
- Button lights up when a related coupon or deal has been found.
- User taps button to show offers.
- Tap on an offer for details.
Snapshot
- Tap to see a list of former snapshots and get the “Take Snapshot” control
- Snapshots are screenshots of the currently viewed page – marketed as the way to capture Confirmation Page info on purchases
- Snapshop history easily available to track prior purchases
- May also be used for bookmarking pages
Form Fill
- Tap button to enter billing, shipping and payment info for storage in the app
- Slide from button to online form to fill in fields.
- Enable storage of multiple shipping addresses and payment types