Mobile commerce having an impact on online sales
IMRG, a retail industry association based in the United Kingdom, has released a new report concerning mobile commerce. The report shows that mobile shopping is becoming more common among consumers. This may be due to the fact that mobile commerce firms are beginning to take issues like security and efficiency more seriously. As mobile commerce platforms become more secure, consumers are becoming more likely to use these platforms. Efficient platforms also improve the shopping experience, further encouraging consumers to participate in mobile commerce in the future.
23% of online sales now come from mobile devices
The report shows that mobile commerce now accounts for 23% of online sales in the second quarter of 2013. This is an 11.6% increase over what mobile sales had been during the same period in the previous year. While sales are increasing, the report shows that mobile devices are primarily used to research products rather than purchase them outright. While this means that more consumers are using their mobile devices to enhance their shopping experience, it shows that many have yet to ease into the mobile commerce space.
Survey shows majority of smartphone owners have yet to make a mobile payment
A similar survey was recently released by market research firm Econsultancy that shows 51% of smartphone owners have not made a mobile payment with their device in the past six months. Many of these consumers have expressed interest in mobile commerce, but have chosen not to participate due to security concerns and other issues. Security is currently one of the most significant hurdles barring the aggressive progress of the mobile commerce sector.
Security proves to be a problematic issue for mobile commerce
As mobile commerce platforms become more secure, consumers are likely to show more interest in them. Mobile commerce has become popular for consumers and hackers alike, with the latter being drawn to the sector by the abundance of financial information that is readily available therein. Some platforms have been criticized for their lackluster security features, which have placed financial information at risk of theft and exploitation in the past, but this criticism has helped the mobile commerce sector become more aware of the threats that exist in the digital world.
Yesmail Interactive has released a benchmark report that shows that consumers often access email over these devices.
An insightful benchmark report has just been released by Yesmail Interactive, which could prove to be highly useful to online mobile marketing and commerce companies who are currently – or who will be – using email to communicate with consumers.
The report showed that a tremendous percentage of consumers are using their smartphones and tablets to open emails.
It also revealed more detailed data, such as the fact that an overwhelmingly large number of brand emails are being opened specifically over devices based on Apple’s iOS. At the same time, Android devices are far behind that leader, with only 17 percent of owners opening brand emails using their devices. Windows, BlackBerry, and other device platforms are barely on the radar with a slim 1 percent.
Yesmail assembled its mobile marketing report based on an analysis of more than 5 billion emails.
The over 5 billion emails sent by Yesmail revealed the following key figures:
• Consumer service organizations such as Groupon or Yelp experience a mobile marketing email open rate of over 50 percent, which is a figure that is the highest in the industry. This suggests that this sector is performing the best in terms of optimizing their emails for smartphone and tablet users.
• One third of all consumers were deemed to be “device-agnostic” by the report. Also known as hybrid users, they use smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers equally, without preference, for viewing emails.
• 61 percent of active users either exclusively use their smartphones or tablets to open mobile marketing emails, or use their mobiles and desktops interchangeably.
• The most effective frequency of email sending is from three to seven times per week. The companies that have the greatest active subscriber percentage (21 percent) send an email at least one time every two days. When emails are sent on a daily basis, the figure plummets to 11 percent.
• Among all email opens, 49 percent occur on a smartphone or tablet.
• There is a 100 percent higher click-to-open rate on desktops when compared to smartphones and tablets, across all industries.
• Eighty two percent of all mobile marketing email opening activity occurs on Apple devices.
The insight from this report could be highly beneficial for underscoring the need for proper mobile marketing optimization for emails, and tailoring a campaign to provide consumers with the experience that they expect and prefer.
