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By Dave Bodamer

In an almost science fiction-like scenario, a customer is walking around a mall when his or her cell phone signals an incoming message. A simple-text e-mail pops up on the cell phone’s Web browser and informs the shopper that it is now raining outside — and provides a list of stores in the mall that sell umbrellas. It also offers the shopper the movie times at the mall’s theater.

That is exactly the type of situation that could play out at the The Pyramid Cos.’ Palisades Center, West Nyack, N.Y., which has become the first mall in the country to test a service provided by Cranbury, N.J.-based GeePS Inc., enabling retailers to communicate with shoppers at the mall via wireless technology. The trial run started in November and goes through January.

The technology behind the system is fairly simple. It takes advantage of wireless communication and GPS (global positioning systems) to bring the information to subscribers, particularly targeting people in a mall. Wireless Web use is beginning to become ubiquitous, and starting in October all cellular phones sold had GPS receivers in them. Customers can also receive information on their home computers or by calling a hot line, but the service’s true utility is for retailers trying to capture customers in the building carrying GPS-enabled wireless devices.

Consumers can register on Palisades Center’s Web site and indicate the stores or product categories from which they want to receive special promotional offers. As the retailers make such offers, they appear on the consumers’ cell phones via the Web browsers included on the devices. The system enables retailers to conduct real-time marketing efforts. The success or failure of such efforts can be learned immediately by seeing if customers enter the store as a result. However, consumers will not receive unwanted messages, nor is their information sold to third parties.

The system has several other practical applications besides marketing. For example, if customers make appointments at hair or nail salons or restaurants in the mall, they then could continue to shop and be notified via their cell phone that it is time for their appointments. Moreover, the technology may someday be used to conduct transactions, enabling shoppers to make purchases from a cell phone before even going to the store, so the items can be bagged and ready for pickup when they get there. The implementers of the technology liken the concept to the EZ Pass systems used at tollbooths.

To accommodate the system, the Palisades Center has added a new shorter Web alias — www.palcen.com — that can be typed faster on a cell phone. Moreover, the center has installed four kiosks where customers can register for the service. They can also register from home. In mid-October, about two weeks before the program’s official scheduled launch of Nov. 1, about 40 retailers in the shopping center were prepared to try the service, while dozens of others were still considering it. This month retailers at the mall have free access to the system as it is tested and fine-tuned. GeePS will work out a fee arrangement in January. The company declined to reveal any other financial information.

“At this point there’s no risk for them. It’s a pilot program and it’s free advertising,” GeePS Director of Mall Marketing Jan Heppe said. “It’s as flexible as the weather. A retailer can type a message and go. There won’t be any wasting time.”

As the first full-scale test, GeePS will fine-tune how the system works and begin to study customers’ response to the service.

“This agreement with Palisades Center marks the first time brick-and-mortar retailers are trying wireless technologies as a way to capture new customers,” GeePS CEO Andy Goren said. “Palisades Center is leading retailers into the future by offering location-sensitive wireless technologies to over 200 major stores and their customers. This proves that GeePS is a very attractive tool for brick-and-mortar retailers.”

For Palisades Center, the reason for trying the technology fits into its strategy to be a cutting-edge shopping center.

“We try to do everything new and different, so to us this is a perfect fit,” Palisades Center General Manager John Mott said. “We wanted to be the first to experience this and to give our retailers and customers some experience using this.”

In fact, that is why GeePS picked the center. “We believe it’s a real cutting edge center. It’s the only center we know of that has Lord & Taylor at one end and Home Depot at the other,” GeePS Vice President Jim Wells said. “They want to offer their customers a full experience. This is just another way for them to do that.”

GeePS was founded in 1999 by a group of computer software and wireless technology professionals who wanted to create location-based wireless Internet applications. To help on the shopping center side of the business, the company has brought in several former executives of retail chains as board members or advisors.

The system got a test run at this year’s National Retail Federation’s e-commerce convention in September. There, GeePS provided participating attendees with basic information for the event, including a list of exhibitors with booth name, contact, company description and category, and listings of the sessions and schedule.

“It’s very clever what they’ve done,” Mott said. “They’ve taken the GPS acronym [which normally stands for global positioning system] and called it Go Power Shopping for their purposes.”

Mott said he thinks it is only a matter of time before the idea catches on.

“What do people do when they get catalogs? They do a pre-shop of sorts, then go to the store and feel and touch the merchandise and buy it on the spot,” he added. “People come to malls because they enjoy the shopping experience and this just enables people to be more efficient shoppers and makes sure they don’t miss any sales or deals.

“Lots of retailers already keep lists of loyal shoppers that they will call when they get something new in stock,” Mott said. GeePS takes that principle to the next level by informing customers on a real-time basis.