Online SKU Management: Apt Stores for the App Stores

So where do you go shopping for applications on your smartphones?

Apple of course has its App Store with over 140,000 apps.

Google has its Market with 20,000 apps and growing. So does Research In Motion for its Blackberry. And Nokia has its just launched Ovi Store with apps coming.

Now if you are the proprietor of these online supermarkets, how do you manage your sku's?

All good category managers on the manufacturer side are continually reviewing their assortment to match consumer needs, variety, profitability and shelf space. And they partner with retailers, who are concerned about similar issues, to offer an optimal assortment for the consumer. They discuss (argue?) number of sku's, placement, pricing, inventory, etc.

Unfortunately this discipline seems to be woefully absent online. You can make categories of apps. Offer free trial versions. Provide provide Private Label apps like Verizon does. This approach is particularly complicated when you have hundreds of small developers. Apple does exert control and supervision. But all in all, these marketers are missing a real apparent understanding of consumer needs and optimal profitability.

And if you are a consumer, how do you know which ones to sample and buy. Well, the free ones require only the time and effort to download. But there is a cost to that.

Consumers can use online reviews or watch the AndroidStats Market Place rankings to see what apps are going up and what are going down in regard to downloads.

Consumers can also look to see the number of downloads that a particular apps has and the number of star ratings (similar to what CNET also provides for its downloads).

But marketers are here dealing with a totally different type of sku experience and run the risk of really confusing consumers.

According to Flurry, a market research firm that tracks mobile phone trends, the average consumer only has 5-10 apps on their phone. And that is with +100,000 apps out there. The numbers between actual consumption and the wasted online space is huge. But I guess that is what the internet can do profit per space when space is limitless.

Apple says it makes money on its App store. But you have to believe that smartphone manufacturers are leaving money on the table because they are not actively managing the consumer experience and presentation.

Now there has to be an app for that.