Tag: retail mobile commerce

Mobile payments help eBay transcend commerce

| May 20, 2013

eBay Mobile PaymentsRetailer 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.

Mobile commerce becoming dominant in US retail

| May 19, 2013

U.S. mobile commerce gaining ground in retailConsumers begin growing more interested in mobile commerce

Consumers are becoming increasingly mobile. That does not mean that they are moving around more often; it means that mobile technology is beginning to play a very important role in their daily lives. This trend has become most apparent in the shopping behavior of consumers, who are beginning to rely more heavily on their smartphones and tablets to make purchases. Mobile commerce is on the rise, and it may soon replace traditional retail due to the convenience it offers consumers.

Report shows that consumers are spending more time on mobile shopping

comScore, a leading market research firm, has released a new report titled “State of the U.S. Online Retail Economy Q1 2013.” As the name suggests, the report details the trends that exist as well as those that are emerging in the retail industry of the U.S. The report shows that mobile commerce has begun gaining significant momentum as more consumers begin to favor their smartphones and tablets for shopping online.

Mobile shopping has become an overwhelmingly popular pastime

According to the report, the time that consumers spent in online retail rose by 104% in February of this year over the levels it had been in February of 2010. Consumers spent a cumulative total of 34.9 billion minutes in online shopping, the vast majority of which was devoted to shopping through mobile devices. The report suggests that mobile commerce has become a powerful force in the U.S. retail sector, driving many companies to develop and utilize their own mobile commerce services in order to appeal to consumers.

Smartphones trump tablets when it comes to mobile commerce

The report also shows that smartphones continue to be more popular than tablets when it comes to mobile commerce. As of March 2013, 34% of the time spent by consumers in online shopping came from smartphones, where 14% came from tablet devices. Tablets are gaining some momentum in mobile commerce, however, as they garner acclaim for their larger screens that allow for better navigation and a more enjoyable shopping experience.