Tag: uk mobile commerce

Report shows that online spending will grow significantly during Christmas and Boxing Day

IMRG, an online retail association, along with Experian, have released a new report concerning the online retail spending in the United Kingdom. The report predicts that Christmas shopping will be particularly active this year, with approximately $650 million in spending coming in on Christmas Day and nearly $800 million coming in on Boxing Day, which follows Christmas. The report suggests that smartphones and tablets will be the driving forces behind holiday shopping.

Mobile commerce continues to gain momentum in the United Kingdom

Many consumers in the United Kingdom have become quite fond of mobile commerce. Using smartphones and tablets to shop online and at physical stores had once been a sort of gimmick that retailers had supported to set themselves apart from their competition. Now, retailers that do not support mobile payments in some fashion could be missing out on a major opportunity to engage consumers. As such, many retailers have begun embracing the mobile space over the past year, preparing themselves for the holiday shopping season.

Holidays may be a turning point for the retail industry

According to Powa Technologies, the holiday season will show that the retail industry must become more mobile-centric in the future. The company notes that a record $850 million was spent during Black Friday this year. This combined with the predicted $1.3 billion in online sales during Christmas and Boxing day may help retailers better understand the importance of the mobile space. As such, the holidays may serve as a major turning point for many retailers that have not yet been convinced of the value of mobile commerce.

Retailers that have mobile-centric promotional offers find more success among mobile consumers

A growing number of consumers are looking for discounts offered by retailers on their mobile devices. Some retailers have launched promotional initiatives in order to engage the mobile audience specifically. These retailers have found that they were able to attract the attention of mobile consumers more effectively, which increased mobile spending activity.

The Barclay brothers owned online shopping group has reported a before tax profits quadrupling.

A recent report that was released by Shop Direct, an online and mobile commerce group owned by the Barclay brothers, and has reported that its before tax profits have now increased by four times, to reach £40.4 million.

The company owns a number of different online shops and saw profits for the first time in 2013.

Among the brands owned by Shop Direct are Very.co.uk, and Littlewoods. Despite that it had been in existence for a decade, the first time that it had ever turned a profit was last year. It has also now reported having seen a sales growth of 3 percent – the equivalent to £1.7 billion, during the year that led up to June 30, 2014.

According to the company, mobile commerce played a very important role in its increasing profitability.

When looking at the figures presented by the company, it is not difficult to understand why it is crediting users of smartphones and tablets to its earnings successes. Its m-commerce took a very large portion of its sales, as a tremendous 44 percent of its transactions took place on some kind of mobile device.

According to the chief executive of the company, Alex Baldock, these are very powerful results and were greatly driven by the increase in sales that took place from mobile devices, especially when it came to the Very.co.uk brand. He explained that “These are strong results, driven by the outstanding growth of Very.co.uk and the unrelenting boom in m-commerce. Mobile continues to be a game changer for us.”

This growth of shopping over mobile commerce at its newer brands such as Isme and Very.co.uk, has managed to offset the declining sales that it has been experiencing at some of its older “heritage businesses”. Its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) came to £164.8 million after having risen by 24 percent. The group’s largest business is now Very.co.uk, and it boasts sales of over £700 million. This has made Shop Direct another solid example of the way that retailers can evolve in order to embrace shopping over mobile devices.