• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, July 2, 2013

Pushing shopping behavioral change and mobile commerce forward may be driven by small, functional innovations that are highly personal.

One such advance just came from a feature added to the CVS mobile app.

Through a new “drug interaction checker” built into the app, consumers can now scan the UPC barcode on thousands of products and compare the product details to the patient’s over-the-counter or prescription medications, which can be entered or imported.

The app then identifies possible interactions among the medicines they take and those they scanned.

It’s one thing to scan a UPC code to compare prices of products in other stores nearby but it’s a totally different element when the result can be directly related to a person’s health and well-being.

The key here, of course, is that consumers need to find out about the feature and then use it. While this will be a no-brainer for power users, the real potential from a commerce standpoint is to introduce more shoppers to such capabilities.

We already know that most shoppers don’t scan items in stores. Many consumers are not even aware they can scan products and get additional information or instant and automatic pricing options from other stores or online.

Just as in stores and malls, the sales associates on the floor have the opportunity to help the novice mobile shopper figure these things out, though many don’t, for various reasons.

In the case of CVS, the current app user may, at the very least, check out the new feature, since it’s prominently displayed on the app home screen.

The larger potential here is to introduce the app feature to the uninitiated through sales associates or even pharmacists.

While automated technology to identify potential drug interactions has been in the hands of pharmacists for years, extending the capability to the consumer highlights yet one more value to in-store mobile usage

And it just may dawn on those new mobile shoppers who scan medications that they can scan other products as well.

In the case of the CVS app feature, the value proposition is personal. And that’s the promise of mobile commerce.

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OMMA mCommerce, July 15, New York. Autotrader.com, IHG, MasterCard, BBDO, Rapp, Joule, ScanBuy, Huge, Spyderlynk, Rue La La, BYNDL, Catalina, Giant Eagle, Payvia, Ansible, Moxie Interactive coming. Here’s the AGENDA.