Author: JT

Survey highlights the changing behavior of consumers that have become dependent on mobile technology

Deloitte, a leading professional services firm, has released a new survey highlighting mobile consumer behavior. The survey suggests that people in the United States are becoming increasingly obsessed with their mobile devices. Approximately 90% of consumers check their devices within the first hour of being awake and 23% look at their devices up to 50 times throughout the day. This growing dependence on mobile technology is spurring the evolution of commerce, making it more mobile-centric.

Growing awareness of mobile technology is making consumers more comfortable with shopping on their smartphones and tablets

The survey shows that people are becoming more informed about the price of mobile devices and data services offered by major carriers. As such, they are finding better deals and becoming more resistant to marketing campaigns that highlight unattractive service deals. Growing comfort with mobile devices is leading consumers to dabble in mobile commerce and payments. More people are shopping online from their mobile devices, opting to use their smartphones and tablets to purchase products from retailers.

In-store mobile payment support is lacking among retailers, despite strong interest in mobile commerce and mobile shopping

While consumers are showing interest in using their mobile devices to shop online, the survey shows that in-store mobile payment support is currently lacking. Many retailers are willing to support mobile shopping online, but will not do so in their physical stores. Introducing mobile payment system to physical stores can be a costly venture and some retailers are not yet convinced that mobile commerce is a worthwhile investment.

NFC technology continues to play a major role in the mobile commerce market and NFC-enabled devices are becoming more common

The survey shows that 31% of consumers with NFC-enabled mobile devices have used their device to make a payment in the past month. NFC technology currently makes up much of the backbone upon which mobile commerce is based. NFC-enabled devices have become quite common in the United States and have helped consumers become more involved in the mobile commerce space.

Alipay, the Alibaba smartphone payments arm, released a report to describe these digital shopping trends.

In China, the trend in mobile commerce has been a rapid growth this year, according to a report that was released by the smartphone based payments branch of Alibaba, Alipay.

The report detailed the way in which the less developed western region of China has driven mobile shopping.

The Alipay report showed that over half of the online transactions that occurred at Alibaba over the first ten months of the year occurred over mobile commerce. In fact, mobile phones were responsible for 54 percent of the online transactions using Alipay from January through the end of October. Comparatively, throughout all of last year, it had represented a much lower 22 percent of total online payments volume for purchases made online through the service.

The western, inland parts of China are easily the fastest growing areas being seen for mobile commerce.

The Tibet autonomous region, the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, and the province of Shaanxi were identified as the areas where mobile commerce was taking off most rapidly, at 62.2 percent, 58.3 percent, and 59.6 percent, respectively. Those areas are quite remote and lack a solid infrastructure of broadband internet service. Desktop and laptop computers are also still quite expensive there, making them less appealing than the far more affordable smartphone.

On the other hand, Guangdong province and the cities of Shanghai and Beijing, all well developed areas, saw growth of a much lower 27, 24, and 29 percent during that same period of time when it came to mobile shopping transactions.

According to expert in online shopping and the vice president of greater China for hybris AG (the enterprise software provider division of SAP AG software giant, based in Germany), Burghardt Groeber, who commented on this mobile commerce trend, “As mobile penetration in rural China far outpaces fixed-line Internet penetration and with continued upgrades to mobile network connectivity and the popularity of new devices, it is natural that consumers are rapidly taking up mobile shopping.” In China m-commerce is expected to reach $162 billion by the close of 2017.