Tag: mobile commerce trends

The majority of online shoppers will interact in some way with brands over tablets and smartphones.

According to the Mobile Commerce Index report published by Branding Brand, online shopping has now crested a vital peak in terms of consumer behaviors over devices such as smartphones and tablets.

The majority of shoppers are headed to m-commerce websites instead of exclusively using the standard web.

The report showed that last month, smartphones and tablets were responsible for more than half – 51 percent – of all online visits to retail websites. Most of these mobile commerce visits came from Apple devices. Comparatively, when looking at the same figures from 2010, only four percent of all online retail visits had been from users of these smaller screen devices. Clearly this represents a meaningful jump in the number of mobile visits and represents a considerable shift in consumer behaviors.

In four years, mobile commerce has started to play a tremendously larger role in online shopping.

According to co-founder of Branding Brand, CEO Chris Mason, “In four short years, our data has tracked the rapid rise of the mobile consumer from a small fraction of users in 2010, to this moment where the majority of online retail visitors now originate via smartphones and tablets.” He also pointed that this “fundamental shift” in the behavior of shoppers from laptop computers to mobile devices has occurred with tremendous speed, the likes of which have never before been seen. It also offers retail the “greatest opportunity” that it has seen since the internet first became commonplace.

Mason stated that it is not only that the majority of visits online are stemming from tablets and smartphones, but that it is specifically mobile devices from Apple that are being used for these purposes. He said that in August, among all smartphone based visits, 61 percent were from iPhones and among all tablet based visits, 81 percent were from iPads.

When looking at previous adoption trends of some of the most recent operating systems released by the device maker, Branding Brand feels that iOS 8 is going to have a meaningful and substantial impact on holiday mobile commerce traffic, and will represent the majority of retail site visits.

Mobile commerce is still in a state of infancy, but it has become a very powerful tool for the retail industry. Despite the success that some retailers have seen in the mobile field, many other companies are not yet convinced that mobile commerce is worthwhile. These companies often consider trends in the mobile space to be little more than passing fancies that will disappear in a matter of time as consumers move on to some other interest. Mobile commerce is much more than a passing trend, however.

Over the past few years, the retail industry has found a great deal of success in engaging mobile consumers. Mobile commerce, for these retailers, is much more than a novelty; it has become a very powerful revenue stream. Barnes & Noble, for instance, has found a great deal of success with its mobile initiatives. In the recent Internet Retailer Mobile 500 report, Barnes & Nobel ranked 41 among some of the world’s leading retailers in terms of mobile commerce success.

The report shows that Barnes & Noble had a 99.35% mobile success rate, which means that the vast majority of mobile commerce activity occurring on the company’s mobile website was successful. The company has reported higher mobile sales, which add to its overall retail sales and boost its revenue considerably.

Another report from the Australian Communication and Media Authority shows that mobile payments have grown by 448% since December 2010. Consumers are becoming more likely to make a purchase from their mobile device, even when visiting a physical store. A handful of retailers are thriving because of this, while those that are unwilling to get involved in the mobile space are missing out on a major opportunity that could have dire implications for their future.

Mobile commerce has proven that it is more than just a trend. It has blossomed into something that consumers want to be a part of and, as such, is here to stay. Retailers that refuse to take advantage of the popularity of mobile commerce may risk obsolescence, as consumers are beginning to favor mobile shopping over more conventional forms of commerce.