M-Commerce: Why Going Mobile Is Important For Businesses

Everyone knows that in 2016. Not as bullish as Forrester, but still a vote of confidence for the sustainability of the mobile commerce trend.

In fact, even Goldman Sachs are confident about the continual growth of mobile commerce. So much so that they estimate that 2014 will see $204 billion in mobile commerce transactions, while by the end of 2018, mobile commerce transactions will equal the amount of total e-commerce transactions conducted in 2013, a cool $626 billion. Sure, it’s a prediction, but the numbers are hard to ignore.

(Image Source: Om Malik)

Couple this with research findings from 2012 that indicated that 63% of respondents expected to be doing more mobile shopping over the next few years and you have a strong indicator that it’s time to get in on mobile commerce.

On a related note, ad spend seems be tipping in favour of mobile right now, another indicator of the way things are heading. EMarketer estimates that, in 2014, desktop search ad spend will decrease by as much as $1.4 billion, down to $13.57 billion, while mobile search ad spend will increase up to $9.02 billion; yes, there’s still a nearly $5 billion gap in ad spend, but bearing in mind the growth of mobile Internet usage and mobile transactions, it’s not hard to imagine that advertisers will one day be spending more on mobile advertising than they do on desktop advertising.

Mobile Helps Even Traditional Retail Sales

Even if you run a traditional brick-and-mortar retail store, you can still benefit from smartphones and having some sort of mobile-friendly retail presence, whether it’s in the form of a responsive website or native app. For instance, research by Latitude from 2012 showed that a vast majority of respondents – 88% – agreed that having a mobile device that could provide real-time information actually made them more spontaneous when shopping.

A report from xAd and Telmetrics showed that purchase intent was high for both tablet and smartphone users, with 60% and 53% of users respectively making purchases related to their online activity. What’s most interesting about this, though, is that more than half – 53% – of all mobile users, and 74% of all smartphone users, were found to be making their purchases offline or in-store.

For an example of a retail store profiting from having a mobile app, you need look no further than Starbucks. With the aid of their mobile app, which lets users pay for their coffees, reload their Starbucks loyalty accounts and so on, Starbucks conducted $1 billion in mobile transactions in 2013:

(Image Source: Business Insider)

Showrooming, the act of browsing retail store shelves yet using one’s smartphone to look for and purchase a better deal online, is often cited as a problem, yet a survey conducted in April 2013 showed that even amongst the 21.85% of respondents that showroomed, most (54%) ended up buying from the same retail chain anyway, albeit from the chain’s online store. So, as you can see, it’s important to make sure that any customers who happen to be showrooming end up buying from your store anyway, and the best way to do that is to make sure your online store is mobile-friendly.

(Image Source: Retail Prophet)

Mobile-Unfriendly Websites Drive Customers Away

At the end of the day, given the large and ever-growing number of mobile Internet users, the biggest reason to have a mobile friendly website is just the fact that a mobile-unfriendly website has every chance of driving potential customers away. Even as early as 2012, a study from Google showed that mobile-friendliness was a key factor in purchase decisions, with 67% indicating that a mobile-friendly website made them more likely to buy a product or use a service. In addition, 61% indicated that a bad mobile experience made them more likely to leave.

(Image Source: Google Mobile Ads Blog)

And it’s not just customers that you stand to lose: the same study found that not having a mobile-friendly website actually hurt customers’ perception of the brand: 52% of users indicated that a bad mobile experience made them less likely to engage with the company, while 48% felt that a lack of mobile-friendliness made them think that the company didn’t care about their business. Other research has provided similar information: Latitude reported that a good mobile experience improves brand perception for 61% of people.

In fact, given the emphasis Google seems to place on responsive, mobile-friendly web design – including a dedicated set of resources to making your website work across multiple devices – it’d be silly to not listen: after all, Google does rule the roost in terms of search, and it’d probably be in anyone’s best interests to do what Google likes, lest it harms your search rankings.

Conclusion

All of this isn’t to say that “traditional” e-commerce – purchases made on desktop and laptop computers – is dead and that you should move on to m-commerce. The intention here was to highlight the way in which mobile commerce can no longer be ignored, and the reasons why your business and e-commerce venture(s) should be mobile-friendly.

It might be a few years before mobile commerce spending and revenue reaches the levels that e-commerce enjoys right now, but it’s definitely better to get in on it now and ride the wave, instead of having to play catch-up later on.

Related posts:

• 15 Mobile Billing Systems For E-Commerce


• Mobile Payment Systems: The Era Of A Cashless Future


• Reward Your Customers: 9 Loyalty Platforms For Booming Businesses


• E-Commerce in China – The Multi-Billlion Dollar Game-Changing Industry

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