Category: Mobile Commerce

This trend is heading around the world as Diwali shopping in India broke mobile records.

While the holiday shopping season is only just getting started in the United States, India has already had a major wave of its own m-commerce season as Diwali brought a tremendous number of shoppers to their device screens to pick up that perfect gift.

According to UCWeb, the holiday shopping traffic across India broke the 75.5 percent mark this year.

UCWeb is the company behind the top mobile browser used in India, as it holds onto a market share that is greater than 54 percent in that country. This makes that company uniquely able to understand the increases that are being seen in m-commerce activities throughout the year and at times of holiday shopping such as during Diwali.

According to the company’s managing director in India, Kenny Ye, “The numbers of users who visit Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal via UC Browser in the month leading up to Diwali 2015 increased over 75 percent compared with last year.”

People in India are steadily increasing their use of m-commerce, particularly during festive seasons.

Ye went on to explain that consumers in India are “embracing shopping on the go” to a growing degree. They are finding that there is a great deal of opportunity available to take advantage of the time they have while they commute or on lunch breaks, for example, in order to pick up the gifts they need for festive celebrations. It helps them to save time and to be able to find some great ways to save money on what they want to buy.

That said, this use of mobile commerce for Diwali in India has been met with some resistance in that many people are saying that it is pushing people to think of this important time on the calendar in an exclusively commercial sense, when it is supposed to mean a great deal more.

This closely mirrors the sentiment of many people who will be using m-commerce to help them to get ahead in their Christmas shopping during the holiday season in the United States. It will be interesting to see what other trends follow the same paths between the two countries and their top gift giving holidays.

Inside Secure finds that consumers are using their mobile devices to get their holiday shopping done

A new survey from Inside Secure shows that holiday shopping is having a major impact on mobile commerce. The survey found that 51% of holiday shoppers prefer using a mobile app when they are purchasing products. Doing so is seen as more convenient, as they are able to avoid large crowds when shopping online or accelerate the checkout process when they visit physical stores. Using mobile devices in physical stores, however, is less popular among consumers than using these devices to shop online.

Security concerns keep some consumers away from mobile commerce

According to the survey from Inside Secure, many consumers do not use their mobile devices to pay for products in physical stores because they have security concerns. Some 70% cited identity theft and payment fraud as the reason they avoid mobile commerce in physical stores. Shoppers have also expressed concerns regarding their privacy, as past cyber attacks focused on retailers have highlighted how easily some malicious groups can acquire consumer information and exploit this data for personal gain.

Mobile shopping is on the rise as holiday season approaches

While consumers have concerns regarding security, many believe that mobile commerce is the wave of the future. The mobile commerce space is experiencing healthy growth, powered by the holiday shopping seasons of past years. This year, some 39% of mobile consumers are planning to make an in-store purchase with their smartphones, an increase from the 33% that did so last year. A greater portion of consumers are planning on purchasing products online, using their mobile devices as their primary shopping platform.

Younger consumers are more comfortable with mobile commerce

Notably, the survey found that mobile commerce is most popular among those between the ages of 18 and 44. This demographic tends to be more comfortable with mobile technology, having had a great deal of experience with smartphones and the digital world. The survey also found that iOS users are more likely than their Android counterparts to participate in mobile commerce over the holiday season, making use of Apple’s new mobile payments service, Apple Pay.