Website-Icon Dirk Barmscheidt – Digitale Geschäftsmodelle Brantalist Consulting

Deck the halls with mobile commerce

Stereotypical male shoppers need not be persuaded about the value of m-commerce — shop on Christmas Eve right from your phone! But many online merchants and media companies have been slow to take up the mobile mantle.

 

We are all counting the days until Christmas. But for some of us, mostly male, it comes as a last-minute surprise that for Christmas or other events we need to buy presents.

Normally, we battle downtown in jammed-full stores for the last offerings. No price is too high to avert the disaster of empty hands on Christmas night.

Thanks to the mobile Internet, the nightmare has an end: E-commerce is cool, but m-commerce is fantastic!

In 2013, mobile commerce passed the fixed-line Internet consumption of online shopping.

Millward Brown Digital and Adweek report smartphone and tablet users are visiting retail Web sites 6.2 times per month, compared to the 2.9 times among online users. And these mobile users are broader in checking the shopping opportunities: 23% visit more than four retailers a month, as opposed to 11% of online users.

Showrooming (browsing the things online that you found in a store) is one of the most frequent uses of m-commerce. But more and more, consumers are buying directly on their smartphones or tablets.

Nearly half (47%) of all purchases are done out of home, but 29.9% happen at home on the sofa, according to a report from Fitkau & Maass Consulting.

Amazon and eBay currently are generating approximately 25% of their revenues via mobile, and it’s growing rapidly.

But not all online shops are prepared for the demands of mobile commerce. For example, in Germany, only 40% of all shops are optimised for mobile usage. Responsive Web design and shop design should be the drivers for business in 2014!

Likewise, the challenge for news sites is the establishment of appropriate environments for m-commerce. Content and commerce should go hand-in-hand in presentations to users and customers, with a clear delineation between editorial and commercial content.

In the current Christmas rally, helping your users find the best shop on the mobile Internet should be at the top of your list.

Let’s celebrate the mobile party 2014!