In case it might have slipped past you, it’s Christmas. A time of goodwill to all man-kind, peace and harmony on Earth, masses of nostalgia-inducing adverts and substantial expenditure on gifts. It’s the time of year that many people look forward to and perhaps none more so than those in charge of high street retailers. Or at least that used to be the case.

Christmas used to be  a time of year that retailers were ‘buoyed by record high street spending’, but the consumer momentum behind online retailers, coupled with the idea that a better deal can be found online, has had significant knock on effects for those on the high street.

When eCommmerce emerged in the mid-late 90′s, high street retailers were slow to get involved and because of this, it’s allowed the likes of Amazon to become one of the world’s largest retailers. It’s fair to say that the high street missed out…big time. Today, Matt Warman from The Daily Telegraph has written a piece from some data released from Ofcom, on the fact that Britain has become an nation of online shoppers, with 79% of internet users having made an online purchase, compared to just 27% of Italians. There’s another growing trend that Matt has also addressed in his piece.  The number of people in the UK surfing the web on their phones is higher than any other country (17 countries surveyed), with 46% of users browsing on their mobile.

UK smartphone penetration is expected to tip over 50% by the end of the year and there’s no doubt that today, the world of retail is on the cusp of a mobile revolution. There’s been a lot of talk from retailers about the recognition of the importance of mobile as part of the shopping experience, as I’ve written about before, but it’s yet to have been followed up by any real action.

There are exceptions though. Argos has been one of the early high street adopters of mobile, creating a click-to-collect service, allowing customers to reserve products on their mobile, to collect in store. It’s a simple service that still drives footfall to stores and integrates the legendary Argos catalogue. Consumers can be a sceptical bunch and often need a little guidance to try new things, especially if they’re not used to making purchases online or on their mobile, which is why what I saw this morning caught my interest.

Argos pop-up store

Walking through Waterloo station this morning, like thousands of other commuters, I saw that Argos had set up a pop-up store, well, more like a back-lit box with images of some of the top selling catalogue items accompanied by QR codes. Instructions were posted on each side of the cube, telling people how they can use the service and if anything, it served as a great educational exercise, allowing customers to test out the mobile ordering service on small items, or items such as cameras or games consoles.

Arguably Argos had perhaps been prompted in to action by eBay’s pop up shop in the West End at the start of December, a cash-less store that allowed people to come by and purchase some of the top-selling items on eBay and get them delivered to your home. While many consumers out there may still be wary of eBay, Argos realised that their brand is trusted by consumers and by doing something similar it could not only help educate consumers on how they can make a purchase on their phone but also get more people using their mobile service. A great move by Argos and as I said, something that was seen by thousands of commuters and undoubtedly tried out by a few.

Argos aside, the action from the rest of the high-street has been disappointing this year and if high street retailers are serious about the opportunity mobile presents they need to get their act together and quickly.

PayPal, an online payments service established in 2000 (and now owned by eBay) announced recently it processes more than $10,000 per minute in mobile payments and that it expects to see more than $3.5bn in mobile payment volume by the end of the year. So aside from the sheer volume, why is this relevant to high street retailers? Well, despite being about 12 years old, PayPal is still acting like a start-up.

The Next Web recently posted a video with John Lunn, Director of Platform and Integration at PayPal X (an eBay initiative to build ‘comprehensive commerce products and services for merchants of all sizes’), demonstrating something that makes use of a high street retailer’s biggest asset: The physical store. A physical store can only serve the retailer between opening hours. For the rest of the time the store just sits there with people walking past it. PayPal has taken the idea of window shopping one step further, allowing customers to interact with a store’s window and purchase items from the store via their phone. Brilliant! It’s something that stores spend significant budget on, to make sure window displays are as alluring as possible to draw people in to the store – but what about when the store’s closed?

John Lunn explains that he thought of the idea when walking down Oxford Street around midnight and all the shops were all obviously closed. You can see a small problem with putting this in to practice though – the fact that it’s only possible for one person to interact with one window at a time. Although having people queue up outside a store after it’s closed to get to the front of the window would be a priceless PR opportunity, in all reality it probably wouldn’t happen. I’m not going to queue in a store when it’s open so I’ll be damned if I’m going to queue for a window.

Needless to say it’s an important step for PayPal and retailers. PayPal is definitely one to watch for 2012 as the company looks to progress in the retail sector, while also moving in to the deals/coupon market.

Innovation isn’t just about new technology; it’s also about using what already exists but in a different way. For high street retailers, trying to keep up with the latest technology is going to be a losing battle. Instead they need to look at the assets they already have and how, coupled with technology and partners, these can be enhanced to bring in more customers.

PayPal window shopping from The Next Web