In the United Kingdom, the average 2013 spent over mobile commerce was £199.
Different mcommerce trends have become quite commonplace in the United Kingdom with four out of every ten smartphone owners having made a direct purchase through their smartphones and one in six have said that they have taken part in showrooming.
Among shoppers in the United Kingdom, 55 percent have used their mobile devices in store.
While in store, mcommerce activity often consisted of price comparisons, online. This was the case among 54 percent of the people who used their mobile devices while in brick and mortar shops. Another 41 percent had taken pictures so that they would be able to view them in the future. Forty six percent would research the items that they were seeing live in the store. One in every six were “showrooming”, which involves checking out an item in a store in person, but then using the smartphone or tablet to find a better price for it online and purchase it there, instead.
This mcommerce data was based on a survey of 1,000 owners of smartphones in the United Kingdom.
The research was published in a report called “’Agile Consumer 2013”. It was conducted by Cheil Worldwide. It also determined that half of all users of smartphones and tablets had shopping in mind when they purchased their mobile devices.
According to Simon Hathaway, the president of shopper marketing and retail operations at Cheil Worldwide, “The smartphone has become a key element of how we shop, and all evidence points to it having been a bumper post-Christmas sales period for m-commerce.” He added that there has been a near doubling in the amount of time that is spent purchasing products and services over smartphones over the last five years.
Hathaway also stated that even when the phone is not being used for direct mcommerce purchases, it is still a part of the buying process as consumers use it to compare, research, and seek the opinions of others. This, he said, is changing the retail experience entirely “as we become smartphone-focused shoppers – or what we’re calling ‘Agile Consumers’.”
Mobile commerce may find growth in 2014
Ovum, a leading market research firm, has released a new report concerning the potential growth of mobile commerce in 2014. Over the past few years, consumers and businesses alike have become quite serious when it comes to mobile shopping and payments in general. The past year has shown that retailers are becoming quite aggressive when it comes to engaging mobile consumers and consumers and becoming much more reliant on their smartphones and tablets than they were in the past. This has created a great deal of promise for 2014 in terms of mobile commerce.
Report highlights consumer support of platforms coming from banks
According to the firm’s report, consumers are becoming more likely to trust mobile commerce platforms that are associated with a financial institution. Banks and credit firms that release such platform tend to apply their own security standards to these services, thereby alleviating some o f the security concerns that consumers have regarding their financial information. According to Ovum, 43% of consumers prefer banks as their mobile payment service provider, with 13% favoring credit card companies.
2014 may be a big year for NFC technology
Ovum’s report predicts that 2014 will be the year where NFC technology finally becomes mainstream. This technology has made up the backbone of many mobile commerce platforms, but has been losing popularity due to security concerns. NFC is quickly becoming a powerful marketing, entertainment, and data sharing tool, but Ovum suggests that its place in mobile commerce will begin to become more pronounced throughout the year as more NFC-enabled devices become available to consumers.
Bluetooth and location-based technologies may become more prominent in 2014
Apart from NFC, Bluetooth is expected to find its way to more mobile commerce platforms in the coming year. Many companies that have invested in the mobile commerce sector have opted to support Bluetooth as an alternative to NFC. Bluetooth has allowed more consumers to participate in mobile commerce because it is far more available to a wider range of mobile devices. Ovum’s report also suggests that location-based technologies will begin to play a much larger role in 2014 than they had in the past.
