Category: Mobile Commerce

Many consumers may use their mobile devices to shop during the holidays

The holiday season is rapidly approaching and this may represent a major opportunity involved in the mobile commerce space. Touch of Modern, an e-commerce company that specializes in exposing men to products and bands that they may be interested in, reports that the 2014 holiday season was particularly significant in terms of growth. The upcoming holiday season may provide the mobile commerce space with significant momentum that will encourage more retailers to become mobile-centric.

Touch of Modern is seeing major growth through the holiday season

Touch of Modern raised some $14 million in Series B funding last year. During that same year, the company’s revenue grew by 400%, with mobile commerce representing a significant portion of this growth. More consumers are accessing e-commerce sites through their mobile devices. These consumers note that using their mobile devices has made it easier for them to shop for and purchase products. Mobile shopping is particularly popular among consumers with long commutes, as they are able to do their shopping while traveling and have products delivered to their homes.

IBM shows that mobile traffic is growing aggressively, largely due to the holiday shopping season

A report from IBM has shown that mobile commerce saw explosive growth in 2014, largely thanks to holiday shopping. On Thanksgiving Day, mobile traffic accounted for some 52.1% of all online traffic. This was the first time that mobile devices accounted for more traffic than their PC counterparts. Consumers also spent more money through their mobile devices during the 2014 holiday season than they had done in 2013.

Retailers may have major opportunities in the mobile commerce field

Mobile commerce may see a greater increase this year than it saw in 2014. More retailers have begun to embrace the mobile space, hoping to engage consumers that favor shopping with their smartphones and tablets. Retailers have significant opportunities that they can take advantage of this year, but they will have to provide consumers with an enjoyable and convenient mobile shopping experience in order to do so.

Only a very small percentage of baby boomers have said that they would buy products advertised on smartphones.

Mobile ads have been taking off at an exponential rate in the United States, and as younger device users are enjoying the convenience and ease of m-commerce, baby boomers aren’t nearly as enthusiastic.

People in that generation are far less likely to enjoy receiving advertising when they use their smartphones.

According to the results of a study from eMarketer, almost three out of every four American cellular phone users – that is, 59.3 percent of the entire U.S. population – is a smartphone owner who uses his or her device at least one time every month in 2015. Smartphone penetration is greatest among younger generations. For instance, among device users between the ages of 25 and 34 years old, 90.2 percent have smartphones. Comparatively, in the age group of people aged 65 years and older and who own mobile devices, only 40.7 percent own smartphones that they use at least once monthly. Baby boomers are in the middle of those two groups, with a penetration rate of 64.4 percent.

That said, while they are mostly open to using the tech, they do not like receiving mobile ads.

Research conducted by Experian Marketing Services showed that Boomers like mobile ads far less than Generation Xers and Millennials. This study revealed that among baby boomers, only 28 percent agreed that “my mobile phone connects me to my social world.” Among those in Generation X, the figure was 46.2 percent, and among Millennials, it was slightly higher at 53.5 percent.

Baby Boomers were also much less likely to say that they felt that text messages were as meaningful to them as spoken conversations and were less likely to say that they used their mobile phones as their primary devices for accessing the internet.

Still, as much as boomers don’t like mobile ads, they are still considerable buyers of digital content, as about 2 out of every 3 baby boomers will make a digital purchase at some point in 2015, which is only a handful of percentage points behind the leaders, the Millennial generation.