Category: Mobile Commerce

eBay continues to make aggressive moves in the mobile commerce field

Retail giant already boasts of a formidable presence in the mobile sector, but that does not mean that the company has grown complacent. Through its PayPal subsidiary, eBay has been working to engage consumers throughout the world on the field of mobile commerce. With mobile devices becoming more common, people around the world are beginning to engage in new forms of commerce. Mobile commerce has become one of the most lucrative fields in the mobile space and has attracted the interest of retail and technology companies of all kinds.

Braintree expects to process $12 billion in payments this year

This week, eBay announced its acquisition of Braintree, a mobile commerce specialist, for $800 million. The company plans to combine Braintree with the mobile payments division of PayPal in order to bolster its growing mobile commerce infrastructure. Braintree estimates that it will process more than $12 billion in mobile payments this year and it lists Rovio, OpenTable, TaskRabbit, and Heroku among its clients.

Venmo application now available to eBay

Through the acquisition, eBay has gained access to Braintree’s Venmo application, which facilitates mobile payments from smartphones and tablets. The application is yet another platform through which eBay and PayPal can engage mobile consumers. PayPal is a strong advocate of mobile commerce platforms that are not wholly reliant on NFC technology. The company has some security concerns when it comes to NFC and is also critical of the exclusive nature of the technology. The low availability of NFC-enabled mobile devices makes it difficult for many consumers to participate in mobile commerce in any meaningful way.

Braintree expected to continue current operations alongside PayPal

Braintree is expected to continue many of its current operations. Per the acquisition, the company will exist as a separate entity within PayPal and will provide services that will fall under the Braintree name. The company is also engaged in a partnership with Facebook concerning streamlining mobile commerce through the Auto Fill with Facebook initiative.

Most consumers haven’t yet warmed to the idea of purchasing over their smartphones and tablets.

Despite the fact that this will likely be the biggest year (by far) for mobile commerce during the holiday season, the latest research is still showing that most consumers are less than enchanted with actually making a purchase through the use of their devices.

The research results were recently revealed by ICM, and were published in Retail Week.

The ICM research showed that 60 percent of all shoppers don’t plan to use mobile commerce at all throughout the length of the holiday shopping season. That said, one third of the respondents to the survey do plan to use their devices in at least some way as a part of the overall shopping process.

At the same time, the survey also showed that the future is looking very bright for mobile commerce.

We may not be there yet, but things are looking very promising in the not too distant future, due to younger consumers. It is that age group that appears to be the most open to purchasing through mobile commerce. In fact, 14 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 34 are expected to conduct a considerable amount of their Christmas shopping using smartphones and tablets.

A number of retailers have already been discussing their predictions regarding mobile commerce over the winter holiday shopping season. According to Andy Street, the managing director of John Lewis, there is already a 40 percent share of site traffic that comes from smartphones and tablets, so they are gearing up for a Christmas season that is heavily mobile. He stated that “Purchasing from desktop is moving to mobile. It is at 40% and growing very rapidly and we expect to see that moving forward again,” and added that “We are preparing for what we anticipate will be the UK’s first ‘mobile Christmas’.”

Home Retail, the parent company of Argos, has also applauded mobile commerce. Last week, it shared its own figures, saying that there has been an increase of 133 percent in sales over smartphones and tablets, and that 17 percent of its total sales in the second quarter were from these devices.