Tag: mobile commerce news

New report sheds light on the success being seen in mobile commerce

Leading market research firm eMarketer has released a new report concerning the state of the mobile commerce sector. The report highlights various aspects of the mobile commerce space, shedding some light on the factors influencing its growth and the challenges it faces around the world. Mobile commerce has been seeing strong growth over the past two years as consumers become more integrated with mobile technology. The proliferation of smartphones and tablets has exposed consumers to a variety of mobile services that they are showing a great deal of enthusiasm for.

Mobile sales expected to reach $133 billion by 2017

According to the report from eMarketer, mobile commerce now accounts for a sizeable portion of the retail sales being recorded in the U.S. The report estimates that mobile sales will reach $41 billion by the end of 2013, a 68% increase over the level they had been in the previous year. By 2017, the report suggests that mobile sales will balloon to $133 billion. Consumers appear to favor mobile commerce because of the convenience that it represents and it is becoming increasingly common for consumers to use their mobile devices to purchase products even when they are already in physical stores.

Tablets are more popular than smartphones

The report notes that tablets have become more popular for mobile commerce than smartphones. While smartphones may be more plentiful among consumers, tablets offer a better shopping experience. Larger screens offer better navigation capabilities and allow consumers to access sites that may not be optimized for viewing on a smartphone. The report notes that nine in 10 consumers are more willing to make a purchase with their tablet than with their smartphones.

Challenges could derail the momentum behind mobile commerce

Mobile commerce does, of course, face significant challenges that could become quite serious in the years to come. Security is expected to remain one of the most problematic issues that faces the mobile commerce sector. Poor infrastructure is also expected to reduce the popularity of mobile payments as consumers run into problems that prevent them from making a purchase with their mobile device.

Smartphone based purchases are representing a very large proportion of the overall figure.

The largest online marketplace in India, Snapdeal, has just released its mobile commerce data in that it has revealed that at the moment 30 percent of online purchases are originating from smartphones.

This trend has appeared to increase to a tremendous degree on the website, skyrocketing over last year’s figures.

When compared to the mobile commerce proportion of online purchases, last year, it looks as though the figure has grown by a tremendous 10 times. This is because at the same time last year, only 3 percent of the Snapdeal purchases were originating from smartphones.

The mobile commerce research was conducted by Snapdeal, itself, and provides insight into buying behaviors.

This mobile commerce study provided interesting and useful knowledge regarding the way that consumers behave, and the trends that are forming around them. The average number of visitors recorded by Snapdeal for its website was between 35 and 40 million per month. Among them, 12 million are from smartphones. From that 80 percent is organic, and 60 percent is new to the website. Among those shopping from their smartphones, 75 percent were COD, while the last quarter paid in advance.

This last data suggests that consumers may not be entirely comfortable making mobile commerce purchases online, and that they are taking precautions by paying on delivery instead of trying to pay in advance before they have received the product, in the vast majority of circumstances.

The majority of the mobile commerce visits to the sites originated from the cities of: Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai, and Delhi – listed in no particular order. The top selling categories over this channel on the Snapdeal website were clothing (both men’s and women’s), men’s footwear, flash drives, and memory cards.

This mobile commerce data, as a whole, suggests that the majority of smartphone users are shopping a great deal more over their devices and that this growth rate is an exceptionally rapid one considering the difference between the figures from last year and the statistics that have been recorded from this year.