Mobile commerce has become significantly important in recent years with the non-stop mobile shopping and the outnumbered usage of mobile versus other devices. So, you might think it’s still early for your business – especially when you’re a small company or a startup – to care about mobile commerce?
Think again! Read this article and take early action!
Mobile commerce definition
What is mobile commerce?
It’s a term to call the activities of buying and selling goods and services – both tangible and intangible – on mobile devices. For example, you visit Amazon via your iPhone, browse a book you like then add it to cart, proceed to payment and finish it – it’s called a process of mobile commerce – the next generation of eCommerce. It’s quite different from mobile browsing – when you browse the product you want but don’t have any mobile-specific checkout activity.
It’s predicted that mobile commerce will be the leading trend of commercial world, soon.
The state of mobile commerce in our world
Mobile commerce, now, is everywhere. Take these numbers as the proof for it:
According to report, there are more than 1.2 billion people accessing the web from their mobile devices.
In 2010, Amazon CEO also revealed that their customers around the world had ordered more than $1 billion of products from Amazon using a mobile device in 12 months.
From Criteo research, Mobile takes 29% of eCommerce transactions in the US and 34% globally in the first quarter of 2015. And for the first time, Japan and South Korea witnessed more than 50% of their eCommerce transactions on mobile in the first quarter of 2015.
According to eConsultancy, 48% of UK millennials said that a poor mobile experience would make it less likely for them to use a business’s other products (54% globally).
A report from BI Intelligence report reveals that by 2020, mobile commerce will make up 45% of total e-commerce.
That’s for the world. How about emerging markets in Asia?
According to the “2015 Regional eCommerce Monitor Survey for Asia-Pacific”, there was an average 22% increase from 2014 in shopping via mobile devices across the region. Respondents of the survey who come from Indonesia (36%), mainland China (34%) and Taiwan (28%) reported the greatest growth in mobile commerce in 2015. Making purchases via mobile is increasing and becoming the top trend across Asia region.
The importance of mobile commerce
If you can’t figure out the popularity of mobile commerce by the numbers above, let me sum it up and make it easier for you:
Mobile commerce is growing because of the dramatically increasing use of mobile devices. There are more and more people using their tablets, smartphones or wrist mobile phone to check the products they want and buy it up there. Following this trend is the boom of responsive and mobile-friendly website where the shopping experience on mobile is optimized for higher conversion.
There are more active ways to reach customers. With mobile devices, your customers now can shop for your products easily even when they are not in your store. And sometimes they don’t even need to be online to do that. You have additional sales channel to reach your customers, contact retailers, etc. and hence, it helps drive up your revenue.
Your competitors are on it. Simply, if you don’t go after mobile commerce, you might be left behind all of your competitors. There is an example – 48% of UK millennials said that a poor mobile experience would make it less likely for them to use a business’s other products (54% globally).
Are you ready for it?
It isn’t hard to see that mobile commerce will be a big trend in the near future especially for emerging eCommerce markets in developing countries. I hope that with this article, you have an idea of what mobile commerce is about and its importance to consider it for your business development.
Good luck on that!
