PayPal Australia Managing Director, Frerk-Malte Feller in mCommerce advised “With the arrival of mCommerce we expect to see more change in the retail industry in the next three years than we have seen in the last decade.”
In 2010 Paypal witnessed a 25% increase per month in total mobile payment volumes as a percentage of their active customer accounts. This signals a huge increase in customers using their mobile phone to transact with PayPal. With figures demonstrating more than 10 percent of PayPal customers transacting on their mobile phone the message to online businesses is a powerful one.
According to Secure Insight Researchpublished by Paypal, Australians are spending $155 million online via their mobile phone in the year 2010.
As smart phone penetration moves towards 100 percent within the next two years that figure can only be expected to explode.
The message for online retailers is clear. You need to get your ecommerce site prepared for mCommerce functionality or risk being cut out of this lucrative market.
As reported by searchengineland a staggering 53% of mobile search query data reveals that mobile searches on Bing have local intent.
Google has devised various strategies of late to entice smartphone users from search into store through providing real time product inventory data.
70 percent of mobile users query chains are completed in one hour compared to PC users which take a week. A comparative analysis of search behaviour of smartphone and PC users discloses interesting differences.
Smartphone users appear to be very goal directed and focused in their online buying decisions and are looking for information which they can act on in the real world and in real time.
Invodo,the video partner for ecommerce online retailers has formed a partnership with mobile commerce leader Digby to produce retail ecommerce product video within mobile optimised websites and rich apps for smartphones.
Marketers are realising that online product videos and unique video content are big drivers of sales. Leading companies are starting to optimise videos for syndication through social media sites such as YouTube and Facebook. Digby mobile commerce solutions will enable customers to easily browse and buy items from their mobile devices including iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry and Android.
According to E-Commerce Times U.S. mobile commerce sales reached US$1.20 billion in 2009 and is forecast to increase to $2.4 billion in 2010.
You'd expect online retailers would be eager to embrace the m-commerce revolution. m-commerce providers huge potential for e-commerce providers to create new revenue streams for their existing e-commerce businesses by creating a beneficial shopping experience through web-enabled devices.
Yet statistics disclose that despite the huge expansion of mobile commerce or m-commerce, a staggering 62% of retailers havn't yet commenced planning their mobile strategies, whilst others are only in the embryonic phase of doing so.
This isn't a modest task given that online retailers need to consider preserving their existing customer relationships across other mediums, and carve out a strategy that takes into account their customer's buying behaviours and a satisfactory web to mobile search solution. The success of a m-commerce strategy is contingent on personalising the shopping experience and fine tuning web sites to achieve better conversion rates.
Savvy online retailers serious embarking upon a viable strategy will have to explore quick, relevant results that are able to yield outstanding mobile shopping experiences to their valued customers.
What are the key elements of a well devised m-commerce strategy?
Firstly, it is necessary for a retailer to identify relevant mobile site content and features. Delivering an online business for the mobile market necessarily involves evaluating one's existing website to see which features will be critical to customers in the mobile environment.
However it isn't just a matter of reviewing an existing website but really understanding how customers perceive and relate to the mobile shopping experience as a whole. Your m-commerce site should not just be a scaled down version of your regular website. You need to research your shoppers to investigate the manner in which they navigate in order to locate products to purchase via a mobile device. This process will enable you to ascertain what should be different between the website and mobile website environments. It's all about usability in mobile search.
The importance of search in the mobile users' browsing experience can't be underestimated. There isn't a lot of room for users to navigate from page to page or service to service due to space constraints. Slow page loading on networks means that pages means slim, lightweight solutions.
A search box is the best way for locating products and content on your site. If you don't have fast, relevant site search functionality, m-commerce will not be able to create the appropriate environment to encourage shoppers to visit shops and purchase products from their phones and other web-enabled gadgets.
Given the constraints, there are some factors to bear in mind in ensuring the site search feature on your mobile site is user friendly to shoppers. The search box needs to be positioned prominently on a mobile site, more so than on a conventional e-commerce site. Given the restrictions of space search results should be as relevant as possible, returning the most relevant results from a users' keyword search. Where users have to scroll through pages of results this just consumes time requiring additional page loads. Ideally relevant search results should be displayed on the first page of the screen.
Images should be light, small and not slow down page loads. Once again constraints of screen space mean there is no provision for voluminous produce descriptions or numerous site navigation links you might discover on normal websites.
Consumer engagement is more likely to be achieved through making a customer feel they are using an app rather than a conventional website, something which can be accomplished through good formatting of an m-commerce site.
Providing consumers with access to product reviews whilst shopping on location are an excellent way to entice a customer to make purchasing decision. Features that enable shoppers to discover local search results by keying in area codes to locate stores near then with stock inventory is seen as an important component of an m-commerce strategy. To perfect the experience retailers who want to persuade customers to make that online purchasing decision can provide a facility for them to reserve items so that they can pick items up at a later time after they have finished their shopping.
Check out this great video on the future of m-commerce:
There are no shortage of scams in the internet marketing space. Mobile Marketing is the next big thing and Mobile Monopoly is worth a plug given the value it offers
It's founder Adam Horwitz promises riches over the internet by making use of your mobile phones using the process he has mapped out in a manner which anyone can follow. Since the tender age of 18 years old Horwitz has made millions of dollars selling other products on Clickbank including Cell Phone Treasure, Tycoon Cashflow and Dude I Hate My Job!
Retailing at $77 it consists of online classes plus lessons, and instructs the buyer by a step by step guide as to the simplest way to generate internet riches using their cell phones.
Apparently you can turn your mobile phone into an ATM cash machine by purchasing this package. Get ahead of the mobile marketing game and grab yourself a copy ....Click Here!
Zippy Cart Review features an interesting article on Worth Monkey, a California start up is aiming at the lucrative consumer electronics market in launching it's blue book search engine in an effort to provide buyers and sellers with accurate product estimates. Worth Monkey displays a bell curve graph to users giving them information as to what it estimates is a great price, a fair price and what is overpriced for an item. Their monetisation model entails displaying relevant results from outlets such as Craigslist, ebay and Amazon to assist shoppers in making a purchase.
Retrevo.com has released a report which explores mobile users shopping habits online via their smart phones.
The analysis reveals which type of consumers are most likely to use m-commerce.
Mobile commerce is the next big thing however there will be many factors that will converge to contribute to it's potential rise in popularity.
Eric Schmidt recently predicated that whilst the outlook for mobile search and mobile commerce is optimistic, it will take a while for it to constitute the majority of the revenue.
Retrevo's research reveals that consumers who own an Apple iPhone are more likely to shop online from their phones than those consumers who own Google Android or Blackberries. Whilst iPhone and Android users are quite close in using their mobile phones to make purchases, blackberry owners lag behind the Android and iPhone by comparison.
The race for mobile commerce dominance is already well underway. Over the next couple of years it will start to emerge who the victor will be.
Meanwhile top luxury brands seemed determined to be a party of the exploding mobile device shopping affair. Luxury Institute research on the wealthy consumer use of mobile devices discloses that 76% compare prices via mobile devices, while a rapidly growing 27% have made purchases via a mobile device. 21% of wealthy consumers report using their mobile phones to look up product information whilst shopping in stores. Leading luxury brands are preparing to use mobile applications to create simple and seamless customer shopping experiences. Tiffany's mobile application for finding that perfect engagement ring is a leading example of interactive innovation to serve it's customers. It features a ring sizer that allowers users to determine their size by placing an actual ring on the screen and using the slider to align the circle with the inside of the ring.
Starbucks is also trialling it'sO2 location-based mobile marketing service. This will involve targeting mobile ads to opted in customers. The location based mobile marketing service uses geo-fencing technology causing an ad to be sent to a user's mobile phone when they enter a location proximate to a mobile phone tower. These geo-fenced areas are owned by various brands and are sent by brand owners and retailers to O2 customers who have registered an interest in their products.
