Tag: mobile sales

Report highlights growth of UK mobile commerce

A new report from Capgemini, a business consultancy firm, and IMRG, an online retail association based in the United Kingdom, show that mobile sales in the UK grew by 133% year on year in August. The report shows that mobile sales reached more than $1.8 billion in this time, representing major growth in the field of mobile commerce. In the United Kingdom, more consumers are opting to shop and make purchases using their smartphones and tablets as more comprehensive mobile commerce services become available.

Online sales grow 18% in August

In general, online sales in the United Kingdom grew by 18% in August of this year, reaching over $7 billion. Consumers appear to prefer traditional forms of online shopping, such as buying products from home using their computers, but a growing number of people are showing interest in mobile commerce. Smartphone and tablet adoption is on the rise, which is one of the factors contributing to the growth of mobile commerce. Another factor has to do with the increased focus that retailers are putting on mobile consumers.

Retailers seek to engage mobile consumers

Many UK retailers have been making major revisions to their websites to be more accommodating to mobile users. These retailers are attempting to optimize the mobile shopping experience, encouraging consumers to make purchases using their mobile device. A good experience with mobile commerce is likely to ensure consumers continue making mobile purchases. In the past, poor mobile commerce experiences have kept consumers away from mobile shopping on certain platforms.

Security fears seem to be mitigated

Consumers in the UK appear to be growing more confident in the security associated with mobile commerce as well. Security has long been one of the most challenging issues of the mobile commerce sector. Consumers often express concerns regarding the safety of their financial information, but retailers and mobile commerce firms appear to be providing higher levels of security to allay any sense of fear that consumers may have.

Google Wallet might be a bust, but according to recent Gartner research, mobile payments are growing dramatically, with transaction values predicted to hit the $235.4 billion mark in 2013. The question is, what do these seemingly synergistic, yet opposing trends, say about the emerging cashless society? And how can merchants navigate the mobile payments landscape?

With all the hype around wallets, you’d expect that lots of people are using them. Not so much. They will account for only 2 percent of total mobile transaction values in 2013 according to Gartner. In spite of all the hype, NFC services like Google Wallet and Isis aren’t catching on with consumers.

The big driver of growth is plain old mobile money transfers, which are projected to make up about 71 percent of total transaction values in 2013.

For those of us who operate in the global payments ecosystem, these statistics are no surprise.  In many regions outside of North America, mobile phones are the single most ubiquitous computing device, and they are used in a wide variety of ways for commerce and payments. In Africa, two-thirds of the Kenyan population filters $13 billion – more than a quarter of the East African country’s gross domestic product – through M-Pesa, which is the world’s leading mobile money network. Many of those transactions are money transfers or country-specific payment approaches.

The mobile payments market is so fluid, complex, and nascent; it’s very difficult for merchants to predict consumer adoption of any given approach.  At the same time, merchants can’t afford to ignore the mobile payments market — it’s simply too large, with huge potential for commerce growth.

Confronted with complexity, many online merchants have limited their payment options to cards and PayPal, bypassing incremental mobile sales using other payment methods. This is a mistake. The most successful ecommerce merchants are both mobile and global. Starbucks is a great example of a global brand that has cracked the code on engaging consumers by integrating mobile payments tightly with the in-store experience and providing loyalty incentives that delight consumers.

For merchants who don’t have the resources of a Starbucks or Amazon, payment processing platforms can simplify the complexity by handling a wide variety of payments worldwide while integrating mobile and online commerce. Instead of placing their bets on a handful of payment methods, merchants can tap into dozens of payment methods, languages and cultural approaches that look quite different depending on whether the consumer lives in Abu Dhabi or Los Angeles.

Merchants can no longer choose between online and mobile payments – they need both to stay competitive.  As mobile phones turn into payment devices, ecommerce will change dramatically, reaching consumers everywhere on a global scale.

Ralph Dangelmeier is CEO of BlueSnap, a global payment service provider powering the checkout process for eCommerce merchants worldwide, and fueling growth for online businesses serving digital, physical and mobile markets. BlueSnap has reinvented the checkout experience by combining the power of four key components: Seamless integration into the storefront, global payment processing, award winning smart subscriptions, and dynamic marketing tools for up-sell at checkout.