Mobile shopping is on the rise throughout the United Kingdom

Cheil Worldwide has released the results of a recent survey concerning the growth of mobile commerce in the United Kingdom. Consumers in the UK have been growing increasingly mobile as they begin to rely more heavily on their smartphones and tablets. As such, they have begun using these devices to shop more frequently. Mobile commerce allows consumers to shop online from a mobile device wherever they are and this concept has become quite attractive to many people in the United Kingdom.

Mobile devices are becoming strong shopping tools for consumers

According to the survey, the mobile commerce market has grown by 63% over the past five years. The majority of this growth was seen over the past two years, driven heavily by the results that retailers had seen during the holiday seasons of 2012 and 2013. The survey shows that approximately 55% of shoppers claimed to have used a mobile device in store, with 54% of these shoppers using their devices to compare prices of products online. Many mobile shoppers also use their devices to research products being offered by multiple retailers.

Many people purchase their mobile devices with shopping in mind

The survey suggests that mobile devices have become one of the most favored shopping tools among consumers. The survey shows that 50% of consumers had shopping in mind when they purchased their mobile devices. These devices are not only being used to research products and compare prices, of course, as many consumers have used their smartphones and tablets to outright purchase the products they are interested in. In the United Kingdom, mobile payments are becoming much more common.

Mobile spending is on the rise

The amount of money people are spending through their mobile devices has more than doubled over the past five years. Consumers appear to favor mobile commerce because of its convenience. Shopping on a mobile device allows them to avoid lines at checkout and the chaos that is often associated with physical stores. During the holiday season, mobile shopping becomes much more common as consumers look to avoid crowds at large stores.

This new partnership has just been signed between the two companies to allow for broad scale M-Pesa signups.

Vodafone has now entered into a deal with Moneygram, a specialist in currency transfers, which will make it possible for users to exchange mobile payments from among 200 different countries to other users who are signed up for the M-Pesa service.

The rollout is now being scheduled to occur in phases, starting in the spring of 2014.

Once active, it will allow consumers to use mobile payments to add money directly into accounts with M-Pesa or to send money directly through transfers from one account to the other. This will be possible through the mobile apps or through the official Moneygram website. This will help to provide a service that the companies feel is greatly needed at the moment.

There is a demand that is currently unfilled for sending mobile payments to family and friends worldwide.

According to the director of M-Pesa at Vodafone, Michael Joseph, “There is huge demand for sending funds back to family and friends in your home market and an estimated $90bn2 per year is transferred to M-Pesa markets from around the globe.” He went on to say that this newly formed partnership that his company has established with Moneygram will now allow them to offer the broadest network, worldwide, as well as the most access points for consumers who are hoping to be able to send money to users of the M-Pesa service.

M-Pesa is already available in a number of countries, particularly in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. These nations include India, Egypt, Tanzania, Kenya, Lesotho, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, South Africa, and Fiji.

The purpose of this mobile payments service is to make it possible for “unbanked” individuals, that is, people who don’t have access to the traditional type of bank account, to be able to send money to one another through the use of their cell phones. This has made it especially popular throughout those regions of the globe and it is continuing to experience considerable use as well as growth, there.