Future-Proofing You

10The Trillion‐Dollar Opportunity

The trend has been mobile was winning. It's now won.

—Eric Schmidt, former executive chairman of Google

AMERICA'S FEET ARE HURTING. According to a survey by the American Podiatric Medical Association, nearly 8 out of 10 people experience foot pain. The source of much of this chronic foot pain is wearing the wrong‐size shoes. If your shoes are too big, you develop blisters. If they are too tight, bunions and crossed toes. Corns, calluses, and hammer toes are all foot deformities that develop from wearing ill‐fitting shoes. Now foot pain, or more accurately the alleviation of foot pain, has gone mobile. With 60 percent of people wearing the wrong‐size shoe, there has to be a better way to measure feet than the metal Brannock device shoe store salespeople have been sliding under customers' feet since 1925. Thanks to mobile phones, there is an app for that. In 2019, Nike introduced an app that quickly scans your feet and collects 13 data points with hyper‐accuracy. By combining computer vision, machine learning, and recommendation algorithms, Nike created an app that enhances the customer experience while increasing brand loyalty. Happy feet make happy customers. Feet are mobile.

Returned merchandise quickly eats away at a retailer's profit margins. When IKEA realized that 14 percent of its returns were because consumers purchased furniture too large for their homes, they turned to mobile for a solution. While it wasn't IKEA's fault that many ...