Tag: online shopping

New report highlights trends emerging in the mobile sector

Branding Brand, a leading mobile commerce vendor, has released the latest edition of its Mobile Commerce Index report. The report focuses on highlighting trends that have emerged in the mobile commerce space. The report shows that consumers are beginning to embrace their smartphones as their favored mobile shopping tool. As more people consider their smartphones ideal for online shopping, they are beginning to spend more money through these devices than they had in the past.

Smartphone traffic and spending is growing rapidly throughout the retail space

According to the report from Branding Brand, online traffic from smartphones has risen by 83.8%, with purchases made from these devices growing by more than 96%. Retailer websites that offer an enjoyable online shopping experience tend to see the highest levels of mobile traffic. Smartphone users tend to be quite critical of their shopping experience, so if retailers are lacking appropriate support for mobile devices, shoppers are unlikely to continue visiting those retailers online.

Some consumers favor shopping online over visiting physical retail stores

Smartphones generated nearly 30% of all online traffic to retail sites, with iOS devices leading their Android counterparts. Smartphones also account for a major increase in retailer revenue. Smartphone users are spending more money while shopping online as they enjoy the convenience of mobile payments. For some, it is easier to shop online than it is to visit a physical retail store and mobile commerce allows them to avoid crowds and other inconveniences.

Tablets may become the favored online shopping tool among consumers, but smartphones reign supreme for the time being

While smartphones currently account for the majority of mobile commerce activity, tablet devices may soon become the favored shopping tool among consumers. Tablets are often praised for providing an enjoyable mobile shopping experience. This has to do with their larger screens, which allow users more control when their visit online retail websites. Tablets are currently behind smartphones when it comes to mobile shopping and spending, but this may not be the case for much longer. For most consumers, an enjoyable shopping experience is much more important than what device they are using to actually shop.

Forecasters had previously predicted that shopping over smartphones would cut back on in-person purchases.

As mobile commerce continues to become increasingly popular among retailers and consumers, alike many forecasters had expected that this would start to negatively impact the amount of shopping that would be occurring in brick and mortar store locations, but recent data is showing that this is not the case.

Many store owners were becoming afraid that mcommerce might have represented their demise.

That said, despite the fact that mobile commerce is growing ever stronger, it is online shopping as a whole that poses the real threat to in-person shopping. A new Gallup poll has indicated that purchasing over smartphones and tablets hasn’t had any real impact on the buying habits at brick and mortar locations, when it comes to the majority of consumers in the United States. In fact, most people who took part in the poll stated that there has been no change in the shopping that they do within actual retail store locations.

This indicates that the growth of mobile commerce is occurring specifically within the online space.

Among the respondents, 59 percent said that they have not altered their retail store shopping. An additional 22 percent said that they shop in-person more often now, because of their smartphones and tablets. That said, 19 percent said that they are shopping less frequently at retail store locations.

As e-commerce becomes stronger, retailers with brick and mortar locations have found that they are experiencing an increasing level of challenges. This is partially due to the fact that their online competition – particularly giants such as Amazon – have notably lower overhead costs, simply due to the very nature of what they are. This can, according to officials from Gallup, allow those online stores to offer the exact same products at meaningfully lower prices.

Another poll that was conducted by Gallup during the holiday shopping season identified “showrooming” as a potential threat, as consumers have a look at a product in a retail store and then compare prices on their smartphones and purchase it over mobile commerce for the lowest cost. That said, as of yet, retailers seem to be embracing the power of mobile marketing and mcommerce and don’t seem to be experiencing any harm from its existence and popularity.