Tag: mcommerce

M-commerce strategy details released by Starbucks

| January 29, 2013

Starbucks m-commerce newsThe coffee giant has been dropping hints about expansion into grocery stores.

As mobile payments are still playing a central role in the growth of the transactions occurring at Starbucks, the Seattle based company is now considering various m-commerce opportunities to broaden its strategies, which may include expanding into grocery stores.

The company’s CEO, Howard Schultz, explained a number of the company’s intentions for the future.

Schultz raised these points during a conference call that was held between himself and a number of analysts, in order to discuss the results of the merchants fiscal first quarter. He explained that the ongoing success and growth of the m-commerce business and other mobile initiatives at Starbucks were an important factor in the quarter.

At the moment m-commerce represents 20 percent of the payment card transactions at Starbucks.

In response to one of the m-commerce questions posed by an analyst, Schultz also hinted at the company’s intentions to broaden the card into the areas of grocery and consumer packaged goods. He stated that “Over the next few months or so, we’ll be coming back to you and sharing with you the plans that we have to take advantage of Starbucks products within CPG, and specifically grocery, and leveraging the technology and the advancement of providing value to our customers that are buying Starbucks products in grocery, and leveraging the card.”

That said, he also pointed out that he did not intend to “get into too much specificity” during that phone call. His intention was to express that Starbucks would be offering additional incentives and m-commerce options for consumers to not only purchase their coffee, but also to provide greater depth of the integration into the Starbucks ecosystem through their mobile devices and card loyalty.

While the company has already undergone considerable expansion to its m-commerce, it clearly has no intention of simply sitting back and remaining the same now that their mobile success has been established. They are continually monitoring, innovating, and evolving the opportunities that they present to their customers, from the ability to make mobile payments in the first place, to a growing range of methods that can be used in that light.

M-commerce in France skyrockets by 150 percent

| January 28, 2013

m-commerce growth in FranceA recent report showed that the French marketplace spiked to reach €1 billion last year.

According to Fevad, a French e-commerce association, the m-commerce market in the country increased to approximately €1 billion last year, which marks an increase of around 150 percent.

This was a considerable rise in the marketplace and was in line with growth seen in other European countries.

In 2011, the m-commerce market had been worth an estimated €400 million. In 2012, however, it increased to the point that it made up almost 2 percent of all sales that were made online. The data in the report did not include pay apps that were used on websites that were taking part in the Fevad’s iCM mobile commerce index.

Those m-commerce figures in the report were exclusively sales made on optimized websites and apps.

During the fourth quarter of last year, the sales in the m-commerce environment were a whopping 2.6 times higher than there were during the same period of time in 2011. Online sales overall in the French market space blasted upward to €45 billion in 2012. That represented a tremendous growth of 19 percent when compared to the year before. It was also an 8 percent cut of the nation’s total retail market sales.

In terms of online payments last year, there was a rise of 28 percent that was recorded in the report for the entire year, and the fourth quarter represented precisely that percentage. This demonstrated a steady growth in that sector of m-commerce, which is very promising for the marketplace, as it means that this is a steady increase and not one that will be seasonal around holiday shopping time.

The average size of m-commerce transactions increased by 24 percent throughout 2012, but it fell by 1 percent to reach €85 within the last quarter of the year. At the same time, during the first eleven months of the year, the number of online shoppers fell by 5 percent. However, while shoppers dwindled slightly, the number of shopping websites in the country grew by 17 percent during that same time, to reach 117,500.