Mobile commerce report shows increase in mobile app use
By now, it is no secret that mobile commerce had a strong showing during the Thanksgiving and Black Friday shopping weekend. A multitude of retailers put intense focus on mobile consumers this year in the hopes of engaging these people in various mobile commerce platforms. Onavo, a mobile data compression firm, has released information concerning which of these platforms performed the best during the shopping weekend. The company tracked the performance of these platforms that were put to use by some of the largest retailers in the world.
Report shows Best Buy saw greatest increase in mobile commerce traffic this year
According to Onavo, Groupon remained the most used mobile commerce application during the holiday shopping weekend. Best Buy, however, saw the largest increase in overall commerce on Black Friday. Use of the company’s mobile commerce application shot up by almost 600% on a single day. The Best Buy application was followed closely by one from Wal-Mart. A mobile commerce application from Kohl’s saw an increase in use of over 300% on the same day.
Report accounts for iOS platform only
Notably, Onavo’s report accounts only for iPhone users, thus physical payments made with a mobile device are not represented. The Android platform is currently the only mainstream mobile operating system that supports NFC technology, which facilitates mobile payments for physical products. The report also does not account for the mobile commerce activity that came from consumers with Android devices. These consumers are estimated to have accounted for a major portion of overall mobile commerce activity during the holiday shopping weekend.
Consumers continue to become more comfortable with mobile commerce
Mobile commerce continues to grow in popularity amongst consumers. Retailers have been working to raise the awareness of mobile commerce for several months, hoping to engage a relatively new audience of tech-savvy consumers. These efforts seem to have paid off and may have established a foundation upon which retailers can build more engaging mobile commerce venture for the future.
Vodafone to launch new mobile commerce application in 2013
Vodafone Australia, one of the country’s leading mobile network operators, has teamed with Visa to launch the Vodafone SmartPass, which will be available to consumers next year. Vodafone has taken note of the growing interest Australian consumers are showing in mobile commerce and is taking steps to provide consumers with new service that align with the demands of customers. Visa is also keen to meet the rising demand for mobile commerce and has been working to develop a platform that consumers can use to make payments with their smart phones.
Application allows for mobile purchases
The Vodafone SmartPass is a mobile application developed for the Android platform. The application allows users to make purchases using the financial information associated with a prepaid account. Though the Vodafone SmartPass can access the information associated with this account, the application does not create the account itself. Consumers will need to attain an NFC-enabled SIM card from Vodafone in order for the application to work properly.
NFC SIM card adds extra layer of security
The NFC SIM card contains a blank account that can be filled with cash from consumers. This is meant to add an extra layer of security to the platform, addressing some of the concerns consumers have had recently regarding the overall safety of mobile commerce. The prepaid account is not capable of drawing money from an existing bank account. As such, consumers will need to manually refill their accounts if they make regular purchases, or they can set up a specific date when their account will be filled automatically, per approval.
Scarcity of NFC-devices may slow growth of mobile commerce
Minor purchases can be made with a simple wave of a smart phone, while larger purchases will require additional authorization. Vodafone and Visa expect that mobile commerce will continue to generate hype and become a more popular practice amongst consumers. NFC-enabled mobile devices are still rare, however, so the growth of mobile commerce may be slowed until these devices become more available to consumers around the world.
