Category: Featured News

Retailers are falling behind when it comes to engaging mobile consumers

Australian retailers are struggling to embrace mobile commerce. Episerver has released a new report that scores 20 of Australia’s major retailers in terms of their mobile offerings. These retailers have become heavily involved in the mobile space, providing consumers with the ability to shop online with their mobile devices. Consumers can also use their devices in physical stores to research and purchase products that they are interested in. While retailers have become involved in the mobile space, they are finding it difficult to effectively engage consumers in meaningful ways.

Consumers enjoy the mobile experience provided by top retailers

According to the report, The Iconic, one of Australia’s largest retailers, has the best mobile experience. Approximately 66% of consumers said that they enjoyed their shopping experience through the retailer’s mobile platform. Kogan, another retailer, came in second in terms of customer satisfaction, with 64% noting that they enjoy the retailer’s mobile efforts. While Kogan is second overall, the majority of consumers appreciate the company’s mobile website. Approximately 73% of consumers say that Kogan has the best mobile website of all retailers in the mobile field.

Australian retailers are falling behind those in other countries

While some of Australia’s top retailers have found some success in the mobile space, these companies are lagging behind those in other countries. The report shows that Australian retailers are performing 34% worse than retailers in other countries, as they are finding more success in the mobile commerce space. The mobile space has proven to be a competitive market, with consumers unwilling to use platforms that they do not enjoy.

Mobile consumers are still worried about the security of mobile payments

Mobile commerce has become a very powerful force in the retail space. In Australia, banks have been supporting mobile payments aggressively, finding some success among consumers that rely heavily on their smartphones and tablets. Consumers are somewhat wary of mobile payment platforms, however, due to security concerns. This is something that retailers have had to overcome over the past few years.

Thousands of applications running on this code have been found to be collecting and sharing private data.

According to researchers at Citizen Lab in Canada, there are currently thousands of popular mobile apps that are running code created by Baidu, the internet giant from China, and the code has been causing those applications to collect the personal information of the users and transmit it to the company.

The researchers pointed out that a great deal of that personal information would be very easy to intercept.

It is estimated that the mobile apps using Baidu’s code have had hundreds of millions of downloads. The researchers have traced the issue back to problems in the software development kit (SDK) by Baido for creating Android applications. The mobile security threat applies to the Baidu browser as well as the apps that were created by the company and other firms that employ the same SDK in their app development. That said, while it was primarily Android applications that were affected, the Windows browser from Baidu was also among them.

The same researchers said that comparable types of security issues were present in the Alibaba UC Browser mobile app.

The UC Browser from Alibaba and another popular mobile browser that is broadly downloaded and used in the largest internet market on the planet have also both been affected with unsecured personal data transmission.

That said, while Alibaba has already moved forward and has repaired the vulnerabilities, Baidu had yet to have completed that task at the time of the writing of this article. The company was, however, in the process of making the repairs to the holes in the kit’s encryption. Still, it admitted that it would not cease to collect data for commercial use. Some of the data collected by Baidu will also be shared with third parties. Still, the company said that it “only provides what data is lawfully requested by duly constituted law enforcement agencies.”

Among the unencrypted information collected through the Baidu code based mobile apps are the search terms that have been used by the user, his or her website visits, and his or her location. This, according to the Citizen Lab chief researcher, Jeffrey Knockel.