Bling on the go? Blue Nile takes diamond shopping mobile |
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Bling on the go? Blue Nile takes diamond shopping mobile
I have to admit, when I first saw this, I was thinking possible April Fool's joke. But Blue Nile assures me it's for real. The Seattle online diamond retailer just announced a mobile app for iPhones and Android phones that lets people search and shop for diamonds on the fly.
Does Blue Nile really expect people to buy expensive bling using their phone? The answer is yes, but not necessarily for impulse buying. The company says people for years have been printing out diamond pricing sheets from its website and taking them to brick-and-mortar jewelry stores to comparison shop and, in many cases, haggle with merchants. Blue Nile hopes the new app will let people do that with their phones, and, if they can't find a better deal in the stores, buy with Blue Nile.
"Now, they can go from store to store carrying Blue Nile’s diamond search in their hand," said Blue Nile spokesman John Baird. "The average Blue Nile customers spends approximately $6,000 on a diamond engagement ring purchase, so this is a very powerful tool for that shopping process."
The new mobile apps allow comparing prices, quality, and search more than 50,000 diamonds.
Blue Nile isn't the only Seattle ecommerce company diving into mobile. Online retail giant Amazon.com has mobile apps for shopping and its Kindle electronic books, and drugstore.com just came out with an iPhone app for its beauty.com makeup products website.
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