Author: BWild

The latest projections from Gartner have revealed that computing anytime and anywhere is impacting buyer choices.

According to the most recent forecasts that have been made by Gartner, mobile commerce is having a considerable impact on buyer behaviors and it predicts that it will have a considerable impact on the shipments of traditional PCs that will be seen from now on.

The report from the company showed that consumers haven’t slowed down their rate of spending.

Instead, the report indicated that consumers have shifted their focus toward mobile commerce instead of stopping the purchasing of the devices. It showed that tablet shipments will be increasing by 67.9 percent this year, bringing them to the point that 202 million units will have been sold.

This mobile commerce shift will occur at the same time that there will be a sudden drop in PC sales.

The considerable decline that occurred in laptop and desktop sales that was already recorded in the first quarter of this year is only the start of a trend. It is the result of a change in consumer preferences. They are more able to meet their wants and needs using mobile commerce instead of through traditional computers. This also indicates that there will be room made for new products that will be reaching the market shelves throughout the second half of the year.

The combined shipment of PCs, tablets, and smartphones, worldwide, are expected to reach 2.35 billion units by the beginning of next year. This represents an increase of 5.9 percent over 2012. The market is, however, being driven primarily by smartphone and tablet sales. To a smaller degree, it is also being driven by ultra-mobiles. PC shipments, on the other hand, were on the decline, instead.

According to the Gartner research vice president, Carolina Milanesi, said “Consumers want anytime-anywhere computing that allows them to consume and create content with ease, but also share and access that content from a different portfolio of products. Mobility is paramount in both mature and emerging markets.”

This makes it very important for businesses to begin their own focus on catering to consumers through mobile commerce, as this will be the device that many will be using in order to shop.

One in ten purchases made in the coffee shops across the United States are made using smartphones.

According to the coffeehouse chain’s own statistics, which have just been released, mobile payments are now accounting for over ten percent of all transactions that are made within its American stores.

The purchases are being made over Android, iPhone, BlackBerry devices in the United States.

The Starbucks Card Mobile App allows customers in the coffee stores to be able to pay for their coffees and treats through the use of their smartphones with mobile payments based on barcode scans at the checkout. The chief financial officer at Starbucks, who is also the chief accounting officer, Troy Alstead, explained that this method of paying for products is “a very sticky transaction by virtue of the fact that people have preloaded their money that we hold for them in anticipation of that coming transaction.”

Alstead explained that mobile payments also provide the opportunity to gain an understanding of their customers.

He explained that by using mobile payments, it gives Starbucks “an ability for us to harvest that information and really determine the most effective ways over time to understand our customer to target products toward them and the appropriate ways to reach them with our messages.” He also noted that in total, the transactions made using the Starbucks Card – using both the mobile app and the actual plastic card – make up nearly a third of all of the purchases made in the United States.

Recently, the company said that the card is now making up approximately 4 million mobile payments transactions every week. This is twice the 2 million transactions that were occurring by the end of 2012 every week. Furthermore, the purchases made over the Starbucks Card Mobile App are now making up a much larger proportion of North American digital wallet transactions than their primary rivals, such as the high profile Isis and Google Wallet. This, according to data issued by Berg Insight earlier in June.

CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, has stated that the company will be boosting its m-commerce services throughout the year and that mobile payments are only expected to grow.