Tag: m-commerce

The post holiday rush caused nine of the top ten sites on the Keynote index to slow down.

The Keynote Mobile Commerce Performance Index has revealed that among the top ten sites, nine experienced slower than normal load times during the week that ended on January 5, as a result of heavy use by shoppers who were looking to find a great last minute deal following the official holiday season.

Shoppers continued to search for deals long after the holiday season had already come to a close.

Retailers experienced continued online sales both online and through mobile commerce as shoppers continued to return. This surge following Christmas and New Year placed considerable pressure on websites, particularly those meant for smartphones and tablets. It also added some strain to wireless carrier networks. The result was that page load times slowed down a little bit, according to Keynote’s data from that week.

This shows that online and mobile commerce holiday shopping doesn’t stop at January 1.

Instead this mobile e commerce trend showed that shoppers will continue purchasing as the sales continue in through the first month of the year. This involves a mix of different types of purchases such as through exchanges, buying at discounted sale prices, or shopping with gift cards that were received at Christmastime.

Each of these individual trends adds its own amount of pressure to the overall mobile ecommerce scene. During that week, the average smartphone friendly site homepage load time among the 29 different retailers that make up the index was 7.62 seconds. When compared to the week before, this was slower by 0.62 seconds.

During that week, Sears Holdings Corp. managed to top the index, with a load time of its mcommerce home page load time of 3.13 seconds. Its success rate was a tremendous 100 percent. This earned the company a very strong 986 score out of a possible 1,000 on Keynote’s index.

This was achieved through a light mobile commerce homepage weight of 61 kilobytes made up of only 8 elements. Typically, Keynote’s recommendation is that a site contain only a maximum of 10 to 12 elements (for example, scripts and images) and that it weigh no more than 61 kilobytes to ensure optimal performance.

Large companies typically lead the way with tech, but mobile commerce platforms are being pushed by SMBs.

Corporations and massive enterprises have traditionally been the leaders when it comes to being on the very cutting edge of technology, but when it comes to mcommerce, a major push is being supported by small and medium sized businesses that are not held back by the solid infrastructures and red tape restricting their larger counterparts.

This flexibility and agility of SMBs makes it possible for them to test and evolve with mobile commerce.

SMBs often find themselves in a position in which they can move quickly, making it possible for them to try out various forms of tech, such as mcommerce, and to keep up with the latest developments over these channels. Because of this, businesses in this size group are starting to play an important role in driving innovation of shopping and payments through the use of smartphones.

Studies are showing that a large percentage of SMBs are using mcommerce and mobile payments.

Recent research by BIA/Kelsey determined that approximately 40 percent of SMBs are using mobile point of sale (mPOS) technology. These mobile devices are used in store to help consumers to make purchases outside of a traditional checkout counter. It is predicted that this number will only rise as SMBs spend more money on mobility over the next half decade.

Using smartphones and tablets to assist consumers with shopping and to be able to accept both orders and payments can help to simplify the operation of the business as a whole, particularly for small retailers and mom and pop shops. A growing number of analysts are predicting that throughout 2014, there will be a broadening trend of embracing this tech in many forms.

The more mcommerce technology is used, the more rapidly mobile commerce platforms will evolve as innovations are developed to improve convenience, efficiency, and cost effectiveness. This will help in areas including inventory, paperless inventory, online banking, and m-payments that give these entrepreneurs new and innovative ways to use digital means for transacting business. Overall, this is an appealing playing field for the SMB community.