Tag: mcommerce

Sephora sees big results from mobile commerce

| January 23, 2013

Sephora Mobile CommerceSephora finds promise in focus on mobile commerce

Mobile commerce has been a very strong boon to the retail industry. Beauty products specialist Sephora has seen major gains through its focus on mobile commerce and consumers with mobile devices. Sephroa director of mobile and digital store marketing Johnna Marcus notes that the company saw a significant increase in mobile orders over the past year, as well as an increase in mobile traffic. The company is expected to see similar results in 2013 as it continues its focus on mobile commerce.

Company sees 167% spike in mobile orders

According to Marcus, Sephora saw a 167% increase in mobile orders in 2012 and a 75% increase in online traffic from mobile devices. The company attributes these results to its ongoing campaign to engage consumers through a variety of mobile initiatives and services tailored for mobile commerce. One of the measures Sephora has taken to engage mobile consumers comes in the form of an application, which provides users with an array of “personal assistant” features that could be useful in shopping.

Retail mobile commerce expected to account for $37 billion in 2013

A recent report from eMarketer, a leading market research organization, predicts that consumers will purchase more than $37.44 billion in retail goods this year. All of these purchases will be done from either a smart phone or tablet, thanks to the growing variety of mobile commerce services being made available to consumers. Sephora expects to see a significant number of its sales come from the mobile space.

Sephora not alone in focus on mobile commerce

Sephora is not the only retail company that has high hopes hinging on mobile commerce. Indeed, mobile commerce seems to be all the rage within the retail industry, with many companies working on ways to directly engage mobile consumers and encourage mobile shopping and spending. Much of the interest surrounding mobile commerce in the retail industry may come from the strong results retailers saw during the 2012 holiday shopping season, when many of their most ambitious mobile commerce initiatives paid off.

Investors inching away from online and mobile ventures

| January 22, 2013

investors inching away from mobile venturesInvestors show caution in light of lackluster results in mobile space

Once upon a time, Silicon Valley investors had been all too eager to dump money into any online start-up or mobile company that showed some semblance of promise. Now, however, these investors are being increasingly stingy with their money, and for good reason. Investors lost a great deal of hope in the online and mobile sectors due to Facebook’s lackluster stock results when the company went public. The decline of Groupon and the Zynga’s fall from grace have not done much to placate the concerns of investors.

Online and mobile start-ups losing favor with investors

Investors seem to have taken note of the large number of online and mobile start-ups that fail to deliver on their ambitious promises. Investors had been eager to invest in promising ventures because of a desire to not miss the next big thing, especially in the mobile space. These ventures, some of which were launched several years ago, were able to capture the support of investors, but those that remain active have yet to produce any kind of return to these investors.

Study shows more than 1,000 ventures will lose funding this year

CB Insights, a market research firm, recently analyzed some 4,000 start-up e-commerce ventures that were launched and received funding from investors in 2009. The firm discovered that over 1,000 of these start-ups would not be receiving any further funding from their investors this year. The firm notes that approximately $1 billion in angel investments will disappear from this particular sector this year, as investors become much more cautious of the online and mobile ventures they choose to support.

E-commerce platforms likely to see significant hit this year

Internet start-ups are expected to face a problematic year in terms of investments. E-commerce businesses that have not already established themselves are likely to crumble as they see the funding they heavily rely upon disappear. Such ventures require significant investments in order to reach consumers. Without these investments, e-commerce platforms are little more than dysfunctional websites with dysfunctional services.