Tag: retail m-commerce

An Adobe report has indicated that mobile shopping could be a great deal more but retailers are holding back.

While retail m-commerce has been moving forward, according to Adobe, it could be doing a great deal better. The firm’s data from Europe showed that traffic to retailer sites isn’t reaching its potential.

Europe saw an increase of 54 percent year over year in its mobile retail traffic from smartphones.

Adobe published its European retail m-commerce data in its 2016 Mobile Retail Report. Beyond traffic, smartphone based shopping has also led to an 89 percent increase in its revenue growth since last year. This is far greater than the increase in revenue growth experienced via desktop – at 8 percent – and tablets – at 10 percent.

Still, as much as the growth in revenues is significant, mobile commerce conversions aren’t nearly great enough to balance the slipping growth rates in the use of tablets and desktops. Europe saw a consistent increase in smartphone traffic throughout Europe. However, the average retailer experienced very little overall online traffic growth.

The boost in retail m-commerce isn’t actually driving up the use of online shopping overall.

On average, European retailers saw a year over year traffic increase of only 3 percent when taking all channels into account. Tablet traffic slid by 8 percent and desktop traffic fell by 7 percent. The smartphone growth rate was by far the highest but it was not adequate to make up for what was lost over other devices.

That said, the online retail revenue growth rate was healthy at 13 percent over last year. This was primarily built on the foundation of desktop purchases, which continue to represent the vast majority of online purchases.

Desktops brought in 74 percent of total online revenue, despite the fact that they represent a notably lower 58 percent of traffic. Clearly, the conversion rate over desktop is significantly higher than over other devices.

Smartphone retail m-commerce represented 12 percent of total online revenue but 27 percent of the traffic to retail sites across Europe. The average order value over desktop was also far greater than over smartphones. In that area, desktop outperformed smartphones by a sizeable 25 percent.

This massive retailer is seeking to expand its reach by taking massive steps into mobile.

The largest retailer in the world, Walmart, has announced that it is attempting to use m-commerce technology to enhance the shopping experience that it provides within its stores while it continues to focus on pleasing its customers.

This, according to the company’s global head of mobile, Gibu Thomas, in a prepared statement.

By accomplishing this goal and maximizing the potential that m-commerce has to offer the retailer, Walmart believes that it will generate an additional $689 billion in sales that have been influenced by mobile, by 2016. The company is coming to recognize that the future of retail is about returning to the past values for a personalized experience.

It feels that m-commerce will help it to provide an experience that is customized to each consumer.

According to Thomas, “The future of retailing is the history of retailing — a personalized interactive experience for every customer delivered from a smartphone.” He added that m-commerce tools will be used for addressing the needs of consumers above all else, particularly in terms of saving them time and money.

Thomas added that “It doesn’t always have to be the cutting edge whizz-bang feature to get the kind of impact you want for your customer. It could be simple things that fit their everyday needs.” As 90 percent of the purchases made at Walmart are still occurring within its brick and mortar locations – despite heavy attempts to push its online shopping experience – it is clear that it is the in store experience that holds the greatest opportunity.

Therefore, Walmart is seeking to use m-commerce tools that are “indispensable” to customers for its in store shopping, as opposed to necessarily trying to drive online sales. That said, it is Walmart’s believe, said Thomas, that it will generate $27 billion in revenues over mobile by 2016.

He explained that the company feels that the best way to introduce m-commerce tools to customers is by adding new capabilities into tools that have already been in existence and that have already been adopted by the majority of consumers, such as creating a shopping list.