Has the industry made such a tremendous amount of noise that consumers lost interest before it caught on?
In the mobile tech industry, marketing needs to be conducted extremely carefully in order to make sure that consumers will gain interest and retain it enough to make a purchase and tell all of their friends – wearable technology is no exception to this rule.
When it comes to these mobile devices, brands and advertisers have stopped at no expense to spread the word.
However, as of yet, these wearable technology devices – which tend to be rather on the pricy side – still have yet to catch on with the majority of consumers. While it has generated some interest as individuals read up on the latest developments in the market, the number who do actually make a purchase of one of these gadgets is not as big as it was predicted to be. While some analysts believe that it is still too early in the evolution of the devices to tell for certain what the future will bring, others wonder if the hype was so great in this area that it died off before getting started.
This has left wearable technology makers wondering if they are looking to the future or not.
From smartwatches to augmented reality glasses, there is no shortage of different options available for the consumer to choose. However, as this flood of options has been tremendously hyped and the choices have raced their way forward even before many consumers could even tell what they are, many wonder if the flame on that torch was burnt out before most people could even become aware of the existence of most of the products.
According to the trends that have been seen over the last year, and that were renewed a few weeks ago in Barcelona at the 2014 Mobile World Congress (MWC), it looks as though this year is going to be an exceptionally critical one in the arena of wearable technology. Though Google Glass and Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatches have seen disappointing sales, so far, the marketing has been pushing forward to boost enthusiasm. Now, all the analysts can do is watch to see whether or not 2014 truly proves to be the year of the wearable tech.
According to recent statistics, mcommerce currently makes up 30 percent of online earnings.
The introduction and rapid penetration of smartphones has completely turned the world of online shopping on its head, to the point where mobile commerce is now representing a considerable share of the revenues that are being generated through ecommerce.
In fact, some of the latest data has indicated that mcommerce could represent nearly a third of online shopping revenue.
For example, in 2012, mobile commerce made up 10 percent of the overall revenues generated online by the websites of fashion retailer, Myntra, as well as 5 percent for Snapdeal an online deal provider. In 2013, however, that same channel was generating double the percentage for Myntra, and six times the percentage for Snapdeal, the latter of which was experiencing nearly daily growth in that area.
Travel companies are also benefiting from growing mobile commerce use by consumers.
It has been estimated that 15 percent of online travel company bookings at Yatra.com originated from smartphones. That company is now aiming to try to boost that figure to between 40 and 50 percent of its online revenue share, as rapidly as possible. Justdial, a local search website, has seen a much more considerable success rate, after having seen a growth of its mobile share of revenues by 150 percent.
For a long time the trend was for smartphone and tablet users to browse over their mobile devices and make their purchases in person, not online. Or they would browse over those gadgets and then make an online purchase using a laptop or desktop computer. However, that trend seems to be shifting as a growing number of people start to use their smartphones and tables for a larger number of daily tasks, including shopping and buying.
This trend toward mobile commerce buying has been accelerated by the rising number of retailers and merchants who have been optimizing their websites for smaller screens as well as creating dedicated apps. They have allowed for a greater amount of competition, comparison, and options so that consumers have more choice available to them through this channel.
