Mobile commerce expected to enhance the holiday season
Mobile commerce is expected to play a major role in the upcoming holiday season. Last year, consumers around the world made use of their smartphones and tablets to purchase gifts during the auspicious season. This lead to a spike in retail sales and helped prove the promise of mobile commerce to companies that had been on the fence concerning their engagement with mobile consumers in the past. In countries like Australia, mobile commerce may help make the upcoming holiday season one of the most profitable for retailers.
Consumers with little time to shop favor mobile commerce
Consumers are beginning to favor mobile commerce for a wide range of reasons. Many praise the convenience associated with mobile commerce platforms. Others favor these platforms because they have little personal time to go shopping for products. Through a smartphone and tablet, these people can shop online and make purchases at their leisure. While the mobile commerce field has been plagued with security issues over the past few years, these issues have not yet become enough to dissuade consumers from participating in this field.
Mobile traffic is on the rise
In a recent study released by Monetate, a marketing research firm, almost one-third of online traffic to retail sites on Christmas Day came from tablets and smartphones. Mobile traffic is continuing to rise, as well, even beyond the holiday season. IBM Smarter Commerce notes that more than 30% of online traffic to retail sites now comes from mobile devices as of the third quarter of this year.
Retailers begin taking matters into their own hands
In the wake of the 2012 holiday season, many retailers made efforts to make themselves more accommodating to mobile commerce in general. This meant improving their online infrastructure systems in order to better support traffic coming from mobile devices. Many retailers have also opted to develop their own mobile commerce platforms in order to better engage consumers.
Alibaba unveils plans to support retail sector that may have implications for mobile commerce
Alibaba, China’s largest online retailer, has unveiled plans to revolutionize the country’s e-commerce sector. Commerce throughout China has been changing in recent years, driven by the growing number of people that are beginning to rely heavily on their mobile devices. The emergence of mobile commerce has encouraged many companies within China to take the mobile space more seriously, and Alibaba intends to utilize the momentum that mobile commerce has generated to make drastic changes to the e-commerce scene.
Company to invest $16 billion in support for the e-commerce sector
Alibaba intends to invest some $16 billion in logistics and support to the e-commerce field through 2020. The company believes that this investment will help open up China to hundreds of millions of new customers, which could eventually translate into higher revenues for online retailers throughout China. E-commerce is expected to account for a fifth of all retail sales in China within the next 5 years and many of these sales will come from those making purchases from mobile devices.
Mobile commerce is growing in China
Mobile commerce has been gaining momentum throughout China, but few retailers have yet to embrace the mobile space. Support from Alibaba may help retailers become more accommodating of mobile consumers, developing websites and other services that are optimized for mobile use. While Alibaba is not solely focused on mobile commerce, the support that it is bringing to the retail industry may help retailers engage mobile consumers more effectively.
Lack of security could slow growth of mobile commerce
There are risks when it comes to the expansion of mobile commerce. Identity theft and other types of fraud are becoming more common within the mobile space with every passing day. Without adequate security measures, the growth of mobile commerce is expected to be sluggish among consumers that are concerned for the safety of their financial information. Security concerns are also prevalent in the e-commerce sector, where consumers are leery of platforms they are not familiar with.
