Tag: m-commerce

The travel site giant has now made a considerable acquisition to build on its smartphone and tablet based offerings.

The online booking platform and travel site, TripAdvisor, has recently made a considerable move in mobile commerce in addition to the acquisition of a top research resource, Viator, which helps in booking activities at a destination.

This service will considerably expand the company’s online and mobile booking capabilities.

By the time that the acquisition was announced, Viator already offered over 20,000 possible tours and attractions that could be booked, for which customers had left over 600,000 reviews, videos and photos from their own experiences. Stephen Kaufer, the TripAdvisor CEO, spoke of the acquisition and the impact that it would have on the company’s online and mobile commerce, saying that “Viator will be a great addition to the TripAdvisor family, as online and mobile bookings for attractions and activities represents a huge opportunity for our business.”

It will give the mobile commerce service’s users the chance to book local attractions and things to do, to enhance their trip planning.

Kaufer went on to explain that travelers don’t just want to be able to book their travel and accommodations, but they also want to make sure that they will be prepared to be able to head to some of the various attractions that are local to the destinations to which they would be traveling. By adding the Viator opportunity to book any of a massive number of attractions around the world and by combining it with the TripAdvisor service for a more seamless experience, he stated that this would “provide immediate benefit to our community, whether in the planning phase or on the trip.”

The acquisition of Viator by TripAdvisor was made for approximately $200 million, according to the initial announcements of the purchase. Despite the fact that the company has been bought out for the expansion of the online and mobile commerce experience by the purchaser, the over 250 employees of Viator will continue to work at the various places in which the company is located. This includes its headquarters in San Francisco, as well as its offices in Las Vegas, Sydney, and London.

In the South Asian country, shopping over smartphones and tablets is now on par with PCs.

A mobile commerce report has recently been released by BuzzCity, which has provided some useful insight in to the direction that digital shopping trends are taking over a number of different online channels.

The report has shown that Malaysia currently has the largest percentage of mobile shoppers in the world.

According to the data from the report, 42 percent of consumers are use mobile commerce in that country. Among all of the respondents who were surveyed – who totaled 3,590 people and who lived in 26 different countries across various 11 Asia Pacific marketplaces – 48 percent said that they made online purchases on a regular basis. The report also indicated that almost one in every five participants would use the internet to browse products before making a purchase in-store.

Across PC and mobile commerce combined, 70 percent of smartphone users shop online.

In Malaysia, the report found that when it comes to shopping, mobile and PC are now on par and are both continuing to drive important trends and changes in consumer purchasing behaviors. BuzzCity’s report stated that “In some countries, mobile has become the most dominant shopping channel. This is highly apparent in the Asia Pacific region where mobile leads the way for shopping, as more of the population turn to mobile as their primary device.”

It went on to say that 32 percent of the participants from Malaysia made purchases over m-commerce when compared to the percentage of shoppers in that region who shop over PC, which was 21 percent. More growth is anticipated in mobile as 30 percent of the respondents who were not already using their devices for shopping would consider doing so.

That said, the report also pointed out that the tremendous increases seen in mobile commerce appear to have taken many retailers off guard. It showed that a growing number of people are also leaving shops without actually buying anything. There are several reasons for this. For example, 22 percent said that they had found a better deal online and 27 percent said they couldn’t find what they wanted in the shop. This was compared to 13 percent and 14 percent, respectively, last year.