Tag: m-commerce

The m-commerce war sees websites edging ahead of apps

| May 22, 2014

Applications are beginning to lose out to mobile sites when it comes to consumer shopping behaviors.

According to some of the latest statistics that were presented in a report on a recent study, consumers are now visiting m-commerce websites more frequently than apps, though they are more likely to make an actual purchase using the application.

This suggests that brands hoping for the greatest mobile shopping success may need to focus on both channels.

This also suggests that the previously recommended decision for brands to place all of their concentration on mobile app development in order to succeed in m-commerce may no longer be the ideal path. This is because the majority of smartphone users would prefer to interact with stores on their devices using websites and not applications. This is particularly true when it comes to informing themselves about the brand, store, shop locations, and products, for example.

The study looked into the way that consumers use m-commerce in order to interact with brands.

It was conducted by ICM Research, which surveyed more than 1,300 smartphone owners. It asked them about their interaction with a rather limited sample of 13 different retailers, over their smartphones. Across 12 of those 13 retailers, the websites were the most commonly used mobile shopping option. The only exception, the last of those retailers, was eBay, where the app received the largest amount of traffic.m-commerce challenges

The company that experienced the smallest number of mobile app users was Boots. Only 8 percent of the smartphone users who interacted with that brand and took part in the study did so by way of the app. Comparatively, 65 percent of them used the mobile website for this purpose. The retailer, Next, known for its fashions, experienced the second lowest use of its app – 11 percent – when compared to the interactions over its mobile website – 62 percent.

On the other hand, eBay’s m-commerce app was used by 52 percent of the respondents, whereas 35 percent of the respondents said that they interacted with that brand over their mobile browsers. Jamie Belnikoff, associate director at ICM Research, pointed out that the degree to which consumers seemed to prefer websites to apps surprised him.

M-commerce in the United States to break the $114 billion mark in 2014

| May 19, 2014

Smartphone and tablet based shopping in the American market are rapidly taking off.

According to the latest statistics that have been released by Forrester Research, the sales generated over the m-commerce channel is expected to reach a total of $114 billion by the close of this year.

This will be greatly driven by the rapid rise of tablet ownership among American consumers.

The forecasts made by Forrester Research have predicted that consumers that shop over m-commerce will boost their purchases by $38 billion this year, with an additional $76 billion coming from tablet commerce – to reach the anticipated total of $114 billion. This is a notable rise over what had been predicted last year, when Forrester had believed that sales over smartphones would reach $24 billion and those over tablets would break the $48 billion mark.

It is believed that m-commerce is increasing at this rate due to the fast adoption of the devices.

The analyst from Forrester behind the report, Sucharita Mulpuru, has said that as consumers adopt smartphones and tablets more rapidly, they are also shopping over those devices at a greater rate. The comfort level that Americans have shown with respect to using their gadgets for shopping purposes is steadily on the grow. Moreover, merchants are working ever harder to improve the experience that they have to offer over this channel.M-commerce US 2014

Equally, Mulpuru also pointed out that it remains only a minority of consumers who have these devices that actually use them for making purchases. She stated in the report that “In fact, we estimate that only 38% of smartphone owners and 31% of tablet owners will purchase on those devices in 2014.”

The report also added that they anticipate a growth of 55 percent in m-commerce, and a rise of 61 percent for shopping over tablets by the year 2018. By that year, Mulpur u has estimated that the sales over all mobile devices will have crossed the $293 billion mark. Comparatively, she stated that the total American ecommerce sales will have risen from having been $294 billion, this year to reach $414 billion by the end of the year 2018.