Category: Mobile Commerce

Lack of quality could drive consumers away from mobile commerce

Econsultancy, a market research and consultancy firm, has released a new report called “Mobile Commerce Compendium.” The report aims to provide comprehensive insight to the challenging mobile commerce sector. Mobile commerce is currently highly competitive due to its relative youth when compared to other sectors and the challenges that exist in this sector can often be overwhelming. While many startups and larger companies have their own perspective when it comes to what a mobile commerce platform should be, the report suggests that quality is the most important aspect of these platforms.

Consumers favor quality above all

Quality, or lack thereof, is one of the main points of criticism that exists with modern mobile commerce initiatives. Low quality services have given consumers throughout the world a poor experience when it comes to mobile commerce and has discouraged their continued participation therein. Quality can often determine whether a mobile commerce platform can be considered viable by a consumer and the report shows that consumers tend to favor platforms that offer better experiences than their competitors.

Mobile sites play a major role in consumer satisfaction

The report also shows that many consumers use their mobile devices to compare prices on particular products offered by retailers. These consumers will make an effort to find the best prices they can before making a purchase in-store. The report also shows that the load time for mobile websites factors into the quality issue that consumers have with mobile commerce. Slow-loading sites tend to annoy consumers, making them less inclined to participate in mobile commerce or make a purchase of any sort.

Report notes that mobile sites are integral to marketing

The report notes that mobile sites have become an integral part of any successful marketing campaign. With more people relying more heavily on their mobile devices for nearly every aspect of their lives, websites that are not optimized for these devices are not well received by consumers. Providing a mobile site for these consumers is also not enough to win their favor, as these sites must function properly and boast of high quality mobile commerce options.

A recent study has shown that the number of these device owners in the country is rapidly growing.

comScore has just released the data of its latest technology news study, called the MobiLens service, which has revealed considerable insight regarding trends in the American smartphone industry.

The most recent report has focused specifically on the three month period that finished at the end of May 2013.

Among all of the smartphone manufacturers, the technology news from Apple was in the lead, as that company was the one with the largest share of the OEM market, at 39 percent. The top platform, on the other hand, was Google Android, which held 52 percent of the platform market share in the United States.

The most significant discovery that was shared by the technology news report, however, was in the growth of ownership.

The comScore technology news report indicated that there continues to be impressive growth of the smartphone audience in the United States. In fact, at the time of the study, there were an estimated 141 million people in the country who owned smartphones. This represented a mobile market penetration in the country of an astounding 59 percent.

The research examined the growth throughout the entire three month period that ended in May, and not just the time as a whole. For instance, it noted that at the beginning of the research, in February, the penetration in the market in the United States was a full 6 percent lower than it was at the end. That represents a massive amount of growth throughout that short time.

The top OEM was Apple, which held 39.32 percent of American smartphone subscribers. In second place was Samsung, which was considerably behind Apple, with a market share of 23 percent. In third place, well behind Samsung, was HTC, which held its own market share at 8.7 percent. In fourth place, Motorola wasn’t that far behind HTC, at 7,8 percent. Finally, in fifth place, LG had 6.7 percent of the market in the U.S. This technology news is bound to shift again over the next few months if the trend revealed in this study is continued.