A Vancouver App For That

Karen Henrich is the Vancouver and Paris based operator of ChicWalks, a new Vancouver shopping tour operation that was spun out of her Blanche Nuit touring company for women in Paris.

Chicwalks provides tours of fashionable shopping areas and lists interesting merchants along the walks. It uses an advertising model to help shopkeepers who are confused by the way media has fractured in recent years.

Karen looked at the mobile application trend and reaized it would be perfect for her shopping tours. But development of an iPhone application can cost between $50,000 and $300,000 if you hire developers to do it for you. Pretty hard to swallow for a small business.

So she put her thoughts on her networks, and found ConQuer Mobile and CellMap, who "think beyond merely programming and have a business development arm focused on developing brands".

The companies agreed to partner up and develop the apps for a revenue split as part of an NRC-IRAP funded campaign to build re-usable technology called CellTouch. ChicWalks Vancouver is the first application to showcase the CellTouch technology.

The new app is being launched in time for those swarms of Olympic visitors who are going to take in some shopping while they're here. After all, that's what you do when you travel. And anyone who's travelled knows how much time can be involved in finding interesting stores.

Well now there's an app for that, as the commercial says.

The new Chicwalks app delivers 9 walks (including one of Whistler/Blackcomb), that offers GPS-based tours and over 1,000 shops that include fashion, jewelery, shoes, cosmetics, home decor and eating and drinking venues.

I'm figuring this app should be pretty popular, since chicks love to shop ( so I'm told, of course; men hate to shop). Apparently it touches some primeval gathering urge in them.

But even better, it will provide a spectacular launch and a proven system for Henrich's planned expansion to the world's major cities.

There's no such thing as too small.

So, let's leave you with a thought as you plan for the new year.

If you think your business is too small or specialized to engage in modern marketing, think again.

If you think you have to be some techno-nerd to apply online tools to your business, think again.

ChicWalks has proven that with some ingenuity and agility, a wide network, and a willingness to share with partners, it can be done.

And that's our Christmas gift to everyone at the end of what's generally been a bad year.

Optimism.

Have a good holiday, everyone!