Industry News
Tablet Users Increase ExponentiallyThe increasing number of tablet owners are willing to spend more time and money shopping online. This is an ongoing trend.
54 million people will own tablets by early next year. The dominant tablet is the iPad. By 2015, that number is expected to double to 108 million people or a full one third of the US population.
What do people do when online with a tablet? About 20% of all retail mobile traffic and sales is from tablets. 60% of all tablet owners have purchased goods with their tablet. 56% of tablet owners have downloaded shopping apps.
And mobile commerce is expected to grow. As of now, people buy more with their tablets than they do on the same company's regular website. Tablet users spend 10% to 20% more. And they are on their tablets an average of 1 hour and 35 minutes.
The conversion rate from PC users is 3%. But from users of tablets it's 4-5%.
This is before Amazon released its Kindle Fire, so expect shoppers to start using that tablet for shopping and these numbers will increase. This new Kindle is for more than just reading books. It has a fully operational browser and you can set it to read mobile sites in place of a PC site where a retailer or winery has both.
You can't escape the mobile trend anymore.
60 Million Mobile Buyers
Thanksgiving is next week. And an estimated 60 million consumers are planning to use their mobile devices to shop or seek retail information for this holiday.
What started out slowly (mobile commerce) is becoming a huge tsunami of shopping. As people become more comfortable shopping on a smaller screen, they are finding it extremely convenient and fast to find information about products they want and even to make purchases.
Whether they use a smartphone or an iPad, or other tablet, consumers are discovering mobile in a way that no one quite anticipated would happen so rapidly.
“The single most important message for marketers and retailers is that mobile phones will play the biggest role yet in fueling shopping activity this holiday season,” said Susan Kuo, North America head of marketing for mobile ad network InMobi, San Mateo, CA.
If you don't have a mobile site today, you won't get additional Thanksgiving sales now from mobile, but the sooner your mobile is live, the sooner you will reap the rewards.
Read the complete story on how many mobile shoppers will buy at Thanksgiving this year alone.
Mobile commerce jump expected
In October of last year, about 4% of ecommerce sales were on mobile devices. This year that number is expected to climb to 15% in November alone.
According to a study by IBM Industry Solutions, there will be a "heightened interest in adding mobile devices to consumers holiday shopping arsenal."
Mobile commerce is being driven by the increasing popularity of iPads and smartphones.
An even greater surge is expected as people shop during the period immediately preceding Christmas.
Companies are being advised against underestimating the impact of smartphones and tablets when developing their marketing strategies.
Mobile Purchases Way Up
Mobile Purchases are estimated to reach $170 billion by 2015 That's up from $60 billion estimated for 2011.
A new report from Juniper Research made this prediction, and says there is an increasing awareness of the need for customers to have an integrated shopping experience among print, online, mobile and store-based campaigns. Customers will browse on one device, perhaps buy on another, or simply stop in to a nearby store to complete a purchase.
Vendors need to innovate continually as the market develops and becomes more competitive.
To read the complete story on billingworld.com, click here.
M-Commerce to reach $6 Billion this year.
But that's just 2% of sales.
What's holding m-commerce back? Retailers are confused. They don't quite know the best way to approach customers, so they remain paralyzed. But a smart retailer who makes the effort to understand how m-commerce can not only increase sales via mobile devices. This retailer also understands how an m-commerce site can boost in-store and web sales.But as mobile becomes more ubiquitous and secure, even the forecast of only a 7% increase in mobile sales by 2016 may be a huge underestimate.
Considering the relatively small amount mobile will contribute to sales, should retailers give it that much focus?
Yes, because of its broader influence, according to "Media Post." Mobile commerce will transform retail, because the transparency of pricing will force others to be much better merchants or die.
Click here to read the complete story from MediaPost.
Holiday M-Commerce Tips
Merry Christmas!
Ok, it's only the beginning of summer. But pretty soon almost half the people will have smartphones and can make purchases on them. Mobile consumers will have the same shopping expectations as those online.Keep in mind that a mobile store needs to be especially user-friendly. While using mobile devices, people are on the go, receiving and making calls, and are not really into surfing the web as much as they are using the device quickly to read something important or make a purchase.
You also will want to cross-link your mobile store and your web store. Sometimes people do want more information, but rather than imposing this on your mobile customers, let them link to your web site. Especially at holiday time, they may want more information, but you don't want to impose this on them.
Click here to read the complete list on how to create and increase mobile holiday sales from Mobile Commerce Daily.
Engagement = Trust
Do people trust mobile transactions to be secure? Apparently so, says a new report by the Ponemon Institute.
Initially with the start of ecommerce, people did not trust commerce on computers. Back in 2001 when consumers were first asked about credit card safety, most people did not trust it. Now most people do trust it.
But consistently, the fraud rates for ecommerce were very low even at the start. Retailers experienced a fraud rate of less than 1% over the years.
With mobile, many people even at the start will trust their mobile devices and sites to be secure.
Despite the relative newness of mobile, about one third of users in this study believe fraud risk to be lower on mobile than on a PC.
What this study also noticed was that the more people engaged with others online, the more they trusted mobile security. This shows that engaging with your customers can help them trust you and allow them to make purchases from you. So don't just put your site out there and hope for the best. Relate to your customers. Talk to them. Use social media to build your trust and you will be rewarded for it.
Click here to read the complete story on Emarketer.
