Recently, there has been much speculation on whether m-commerce will overtake e-commerce in the near future. According to the reputed research firm Gartner Inc., the shift from e-commerce to mobile commerce (m-commerce) is real and will reach a tipping point by 2015. Analysts from Gartner mentioned that mobile applications as well as social media will account for 50 percent of web sales by that time. Furthermore, Gartner said that e-commerce merchants will become capable of offering context-aware as well as mobile-based application capabilities. These will become capable of being accessed via a browser or even installed in the form of an application at that point.
The emerging fact is that the retail industry is facing tectonic shifts in consumer behavior with the emergence of Internet capable smart phones and wireless devices. These devices are creating a significant impact on both online as well as in-store shopping across the world. Moreover, the market is becoming more and more price-sensitive with price competition become a driving force in eCommerce. At the same time, mCommerce is giving shoppers an exponential level of control over their shopping experience.
In the USA alone, mCommerce is expected to hit $ 18 billion by 2014 with eCommerce making up more than half of all retail purchases across the world. As an e-tailer, you need to ensure that your business is capable of preparing for the big shift and that you don’t get left behind once the tectonic shift happens.
According to similar research, smartphone users tend to spend more time on mobile apps compared to mobile sites. Moreover, one out of five people research products on mobile devices while they watch television. Also, digital content is still the leading product that is purchased via mobile devices. Mobile shoppers make the majority of their purchases on the weekends, while around 53% of the mobile-based consumers use their mobile devices to showroom their products.
E-tailers as well as eCommerce organizations will need to scale their operations to handle the increased load from the visits of customers who do not want to wait to get to a PC to obtain the answers to their questions or place their orders. Therefore, as more and more people use smart phones, they will expect that the customer experience be extended to mobile devices as well.
Hence, with the proliferation of mobile devices with instant access to the Internet, new sales channels are being created in countries around the world such as Brazil, Russia, India, Africa, Japan, and China. Thus, entry barriers are being lowered and more and more customers from countries around the world are capable of establishing a presence in the online market space without the need of a physical sales location.
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Minal Joshi is a content marketer at Krish with a flair for eCommerce and Digital Commerce aspects. She is a MarTech fanatic with a knack of writing with which, she helps brands to curate, create, & commence digital brand positioning. Sharing insights via articles, case studies, eBooks, Infographics, and other forms of content creation is what she lives for. Being an ardent traveler, when not writing, you'll find her sipping coffee into the mountains or petting a stray.
10 March, 2023 Customers are commanding a different experience. It hinges on mobile.The device is not the future of marketing, it’s the present. Today, the customer journey often begins and ends on a smartphone. So, as a marketer, it’s your job to engage with your customers on their choice of device. Marketers can’t ignore the surge in M-Commerce, as consumers command an experience that rests on mobile optimization. Brands need to prioritize the mobile marketing in their eCommerce strategies.
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