Retailer becomes more than mobile payments and e-commerce
Acclaimed online retailer eBay has established a formidable presence in the mobile commerce sector. The company has been one of the strongest supporters of mobile payments and has made extraordinary efforts to encourage consumers to use their mobile devices to shop online and purchase products. As eBay continues to assimilate mobile payments, the company is beginning to consider itself as something more than a simple retailer: eBay is beginning to envision itself as commerce itself.
Executive suggests that eBay represents commerce itself
The company’s Europe vice president of marketing, Alexander von Schirmeister, recently spoke about the company’s role in the retail sector. According to Schirmeister, eBay has begun to trannscend the boundaries of e-commerce, partly due to the company’s strong focus on the mobile space. Mobile payments have helped eBay break into new markets and engage a new generation of consumers in a more dynamic fashion. According to Schirmeister, eBay “is not m-commerce or e-commerce, it’s commerce period.”
Fluid nature of company makes it accommodating to the needs of consumers
Schirmeister notes that eBay has become capable of adapting to the different ways that people shop and pay for products so effectively that they can no longer be considered a company with a specific focus in terms of commerce. In the past, eBay had only been capable of accommodating the needs of online shoppers that used traditional desktop computers. As mobile technology grew more prominent, however, the company began seeing a transition in the world of commerce and adjusted itself accordingly. This has allowed eBay to put more focus on mobile payments, which are quickly becoming more popular around the world.
Mobile payments can help close the gap between online and offline worlds
Because eBay has begun to see its role in the retail sector evolve, it has been making moves to close the gap between the online and offline worlds. Mobile payments are expected to help significantly in this endeavor, as they allow the retailer to engage mobile consumers in the physical world without severing their ties to the Internet.
Report highlights consumer complaints regarding mobile commerce
Mobile commerce has been showing promising growth around the world, but not all consumers have been won over by the prospects of mobile payments. Those that do support mobile commerce praise it for the convenience and efficiency it brings to both online and offline shopping. There are a growing number of consumers that consider mobile commerce to be time consuming and more difficult than necessary, according to a new study from Harris Interactive.
Businesses eager to embrace mobile payments
The study highlights the growing problems that consumers in the U.S. are beginning to have with mobile commerce. U.S. retailers and other merchants have been aggressively supporting mobile commerce, hoping to tap into the growing market of consumers with smartphones and tablets. In the scramble to appeal to mobile consumers, the mobile commerce platforms that many retailers are putting to use have apparently failed to meet the standards of customers. The study suggests that consumers are growing more frustrated with faulty platforms that disturb their shopping experiences.
Technical issues drive consumers away from mobile commerce
The study shows that approximate 68% of mobile consumers have attempted to purchase products from their smartphones or tablets, but 66% of these consumers have failed to do so due to the obstacles they have encountered with mobile commerce platforms. Many of these problems come in the form of poor network support. A slow Internet connection can effectively ruin a mobile commerce platform as connection problems can halt or duplicate transaction. Other technical problems have also proven frustrating for consumers.
Faster transactions could reclaim the favor of consumers
According to the study, some 47% of mobile consumers claim to have abandoned mobile commerce simply because transactions take too long. Businesses embracing mobile payments may do well to ensure that transactions are not time consuming so as to placate the concerns of consumers. This may require some retailers to make use of new mobile commerce platforms that are more capable of facilitating transactions over a better Internet connection.
