Tag: m-commerce trends

Tablets are overcoming smartphones in mobile commerce

Mobile payments may be becoming more common as more consumers become reliant on mobile technology, but whether tablets or smartphone are more favored for online shopping has remained something of a mystery for some time. Smartphones have long held a dominant presence in the field of mobile commerce as many consumers often use these devices while shopping to search for and purchase products. A new report from Forrester Research, a leading market research firm, suggests that tablets may soon replace smartphones for this purpose.

Consumers prefer tablets

According to the report, 30% of tablet owners in the U.S. use their device for mobile commerce. Comparatively, the report shows that only 13% of smartphone users have made a purchase through their mobile device. The report suggests that consumers favor tablets because of the larger screens features on such devices. The larger screen allows for better control and navigation, providing a more enjoyable shopping experience overall.

Report predicts growth of mobile commerce

The report from Forrester Research also forecasts mobile commerce sales for this year and through 2016. Currently, the report does not factor in sales made through tablets and only accounts for those made through smartphones. The report predicts that mobile commerce sales will reach $12 billion this year. Sales will increase exponentially over the next few years and reach $27 billion by 2016. This growth is largely driven by the expanding availability of mobile devices. Tablets are expected to contribute significantly to mobile commerce sales in the future. Forrester research predicts that 45% of mobile consumers will be tablet owners by 2016.

Study suggests that tablets will drive mobile commerce sales in US

Another study conducted by eMarketer, a market research firm, suggests that tablets will drive the majority of mobile commerce sales in the U.S. this year. This study predicts that tablets will become the primary mobile commerce platform among consumers, representing some 71% of mobile spending by 2017.

An infographic released by Shopzilla has indicated that smartphones and tablets having a meaningful impact.

In the official launch of Shopzilla Inc.’s new monthly online shopping research initiative, the company has published an infographic that has pointed out a number of key trends, including the importance that m-commerce is having to the sales that are being made over the internet.

The first issue of this monthly report is the start of the tracking of key shopping trends online.

The data presented in this e- and m-commerce report and infographic is based on a survey that was conducted directly following purchasing from the Bizrate Insights Network. That network includes more than 5,200 American and Canadian online retailers. This study data was collected from April 24 through April 30, 2013 with the participation of more than 9,000 buyers.

Among the findings of the online and m-commerce trend survey which were included in the infographic were the following:

There were a number of surprising trends from consumers over various e- and m-commerce channels, such as:

• More sales were driven by emails from stores than magazines, Facebook, and blogs and content sites.
• Though desktops continue to lead the way (used by 85 percent of the respondents), 11 percent of the online purchases came from an iPad tablet device. This figure was 20 percent for those with HHI $150K+.
• iPhones performed far less than their Apple tablet m-commerce counterparts, with 2 percent.
• That said, Android phones performed equally to iPhones, at 2 percent, but Android based tablets were far behind iPads, at less than 1 percent.
• Tablets and smartphones based on other operating systems both came in at less than 1 percent.
• Among the respondents, 75 percent said that price helped to influence their buying decisions.
• The respondents said that they’d rather spend than try to be frugal in 28 percent of the cases.
• Thirty one percent felt that they would be spending more in the month following than they did that month.
• Seventeen percent of online purchases were made from the workplace.

The complete findings of the Shopzilla study are available on their website.