Tag: m-commerce

eMarketer has now released new data that has show that consumers in the U.S. aren’t keeping up with the globe.

Some of the latest data issued by eMarketer has revealed that American consumers purchased an estimated total of $48 billion of products and services over m-commerce channels throughout 2015.

That represents an increase of 32 percent when compared to the same time in 2014.

Throughout 2015, m-commerce shopping made up an estimated 22 percent of all online retail shopping, according to the eMarketer figures for the United States. That represents a rise of 3 percentage points over the same figure from 2014. While that does appear to be a strong figure, it also shows that mobile shopping is being used more broadly in other parts of the world. For example, in South Korea, 46 percent of all online retail sales were conducted over smartphones or tablets. That represented 5.1 percent of the whole retail sales total for 2015.

Similar m-commerce figures were seen in other parts of the world, showing that the U.S. is lagging behind.

In China, for example, 50 percent of all online shopping sales and nearly 8 percent of retail purchases occurred over smartphones and tablets throughout 2015, according to the estimates from eMarketer.

Comparatively, in the U.S., consumers continue to use their mobile devices primarily for informing themselves about products as opposed to actually making a purchase. In the United States, under 2 percent of total retail sales are conducted by smartphone or tablet. Moreover, even though there have been some major mobile payments players that have entered that market – such as Apple and Google – only 14 percent of Americans said they would be interested in purchasing something over their mobile devices during the holiday season, said statistics from Bankrate.

Even specifically among Millennials, the demographic most likely to use their smartphones for activities such as shopping, only 20 percent said they had intended to use m-commerce for holiday purchases either online or through wallet apps that would be used in a retail brick and mortar location. It remains clear that the United States is a market facing considerable barriers to mobile shopping.

Innovation could change the way people use their mobile devices to shop

Continued innovation may power the growth of mobile commerce. The sector is still in a relatively nascent stage, which makes it prime for innovation. Retailers, in particular, may bring new things to the mobile commerce sector as they continually seek out better ways to engage consumers. Target has reportedly begun developing its own mobile payments service, which it intends to launch at some point next year. Retailers are not the only ones bringing new services to the mobile commerce space, of course, as social media companies have also begun doing so.

Pinterest is showing more support for mobile commerce

Pinterest has been working to better support mobile payments, making it possible for users to purchase Pins they are interested in. The social networking site is now notifying users when products they are interested in drop in price, making them more financially attractive. This has proven particularly popular during the holiday season, but Pinterest has had trouble promoting mobile commerce among its user base overall. Forrester Research suggested that the launch of the company’s mobile commerce initiative was “weak” due to the limited inventory that merchants have.

New technology is making mobile shopping more convenient and secure

Introducing new services and features to the mobile commerce sector has made consumers more interested in the concept of mobile shopping. Notably, consumers are quite interested in services that they consider to be convenient. Security is also a major issue for many consumers, which has lead to the introduction of new security technologies that are designed to improve the mobile payments space as a whole. Biometric technology, in particular, has become a powerful tool for keeping consumer information safe.

Companies are looking to improve their mobile commerce platforms

Many companies involved in the mobile commerce space have been testing new services in an effort to make mobile shopping easier and more attractive to consumers. As more innovation comes to the sector, services that already exist are likely to improve, offering consumers better options when it comes to shopping and purchasing products with their mobile devices.