M-commerce is getting recognized more and more often not just as a subdomain of electronic commerce but as a global area of interest. By 2018 mobile commerce sales are expected to reach $669 billion. The worldwide obsession with smartphones, tablets and other gadgets lets researchers make forecast of m-commerce overtaking e-commerce in the subsequent years.
Mobiles: High traffic – low conversion?
Mobile traffic overtook desktop for the first time in 2016.[1] At the same time, these mobile browsers aren’t converting at the same rate: holding 42% of traffic, it produced only 21% of revenue.[2]
As a result, in the mobile commerce world the term ‘pre-shopping’ has got a new meaning, standing for customers doing research on a product with the help of their mobile device before proceeding to completing shopping on their laptop. The market of potential mobile shoppers is enormous, but something is lacking in the technology of mobile shopping if a huge percentage is still completing their shopping on a desktop.
Developers are trying to solve it and drive the full purchase cycle to the mobile device. With 2018 approaching we can already outline tendencies and trends in mobile commerce development and user behavior in order to achieve this goal. With a number of truly revolutionary technologies having been developing over the last years (Artificial Intelligence, Augmented reality and Virtual Reality, Mobile Image Recognition and many others) one shouldn’t forget that these technologies are not developing by themselves but aimed at fulfilling customer needs and simplifying customer life. Simplification of the purchase process First, mobile apps are taking place. It sounds evident – but it shouldn’t be neglected once the customer statistics are so impressive: new app users are twice as likely to return within 30 days as compared with mobile browser users, creating 54% of mobile transactions (and the number is constantly on the rise), and scoring a higher average order ($127 in a mobile app versus $91 via a mobile browser – and the tendency remains stable).[3] When comes to buying, a mobile version of the website, even made flexible to all sizes, operating systems and devices, cannot compete with a native app. Therefore, a necessity in high-quality Android or iOS app development services remains crucial for each business going mobile. Second, simplification of a checkout and payment process is getting more and more a tough issue. Google Wallet, Apple Pay, PayPal, Venmo, V.me (by Visa), Masterpass (by MasterCard) – the competition between the principal services is high, each trying to provide a convenient payment method. The main aim of these services is to make instant seamless purchases with the help of these digital wallets morphed into a mobile device. It stays as an essential point for the millennials, with their preference for this most invisible type of payment, who will make up for three quarters of the global workforce by 2025.[4] More personalized m-shopping In the Age of the Customer this feature can’t but concern the m-shopping process. Business is getting use of social media data mining and directing it at personalizing its offer to the customer. This approach definitely pays off: Amazon, a world-renown specialist in data-driven marketing, can boast 35% of their revenue generated by its recommendation engine.[5]For mobile e-commerce there are several ways of applying this approach with new technologies emerging in software development, some of which will prevail among the leading trends in 2018. - Artificial Intelligence (AI), whose rise has been marking 2017, is searching new ways to make communication with consumer more personalized. One of the most popular technologies has become an implementation of chatbots into the m-commerce platform. With the statistics saying that 48% of consumers prefer chatbot to any other form of contact[6], the tendency of using them will definitely stay and increase. Installing a live chat to your mobile application will make you available 24/7, automate consumer communication strategy and finally improve your sales. A voice-activated search is another popular AI-based technology, which some actors like Voysis promising to reduce ‘homepage to cart’ time by 10.[7] However bold this statement may seem, the tendency of introducing this feature to one’s m-commerce service is evident. - Push notifications and the way they are being formed now is another testimony to personalization approach. Push messages tend no longer to resemble messages on a phone screen sent to anonymous members picked up from a sending list. Now businesses operating in the field of m-commerce have extended tools of collecting consumers’ data and personalizing interactions with them. As stated by Stephen Gold, VP of IBM's Watson group, now it is possible to ‘generate a psycholinguistic profile of an individual in literally milliseconds’.[8] These technological advancements give vast opportunities for further development of the technology. - Geolocation is another tool used for segmenting consumers and offering them personalized content. Its essential benefit is a possibility to locate a consumer and offer him a highly targeted ad. One of the examples of an efficient employment of this tool is Starbucks, whose mobile app geo-targeting software collects a customer whereabouts information and offers relevant products (for example, cold or hot drinks depending on the weather) and alert them when they are within walking or driving distance to one of its stores.[9] - Beacon technology, aimed at personalizing shopping experience, has been on the rise in 2017. Installed in a retail shop, beacons interact with a mobile app downloaded on a customer’s mobile device and send promotional messages, product reviews or even inform whether the item the customer has been looking for is in stock once the customer approaches the shop where the beacon is installed. Micro-moments The concept of micro-moments first introduced by Google[10] and related to a behavioral mode of a mobile-owner to turn to his device to act on a need – to watch, to learn or to buy, has become one of the reigning tendencies in m-commerce, with numerous technologies developing to realize the urge of the customer to make a purchase. The m-commerce world is going in the direction of making purchases seem painless, as least time-consuming as possible and integrated into a flow of the customer’s everyday life. Speed becomes an essential factor, making 58% of smartphone users more apt to buy from companies whole mobile sites or apps allow them to buy quickly.[11] Several technologies are developing in this direction. - Augmented reality (AR) Once revolutionizing the technical and retailer world at the moment it appeared, now AR seems to be getting a standard facility in m-commerce, especially in fashion retail. A possibility to get a 3D view of an item online without trying it in a physical store and thus giving a virtual changing room to customers is getting more widespread, and Goldman Sachs estimates AR software to generate $1,6bn by 2025.[12] - Mobile image recognition (MIR) Amazon, Macy’s and other massive retailers are using this snap-to-shop technology which permits a customer to scan an item he would be willing to buy and then sends offers via the mobile app with similar products from the catalog. Some specialists even say that this tool will replace QR-code apps. [13] Conclusion No doubt, m-commerce will continue growing with an increasing number of transactions fully operated by customers on a handhold device. The tendencies outlining customers’ will to have the most simple and rapid purchasing process possible, with client services available 24/7 will be molding the application of technologies in this area.
[1]https://www.statista.com/topics/1145/internet-usage-worldwide/ [2]https://www.mobify.com/insights/black-friday-2017-mobile-revenue-will-overtake-desktop/ [3]http://solutions.demandware.com/Global/FileLib/PDFs/Demandware_Mobile_Shopping_Whitepaper_FINAL.pdf [4]https://www.wolfgangdigital.com/uploads/general/eComKPI2016-Public2.pdf [5]http://www.criteo.com/media/5333/criteo-mobilecommercereport-h12016-us.pdf [6]http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/EY-global-generations-a-global-study-on-work-life-challenges-across-generations/$FILE/EY-global-generations-a-global-study-on-work-life-challenges-across-generations.pdf http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/EY-global-generations-a-global-study-on-work-life-challenges-across-generations/$FILE/EY-global-generations-a-global-study-on-work-life-challenges-across-generations.pdf [7]https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/how-retailers-can-keep-up-with-consumers [8]https://www.divvit.com/blog/6-ecommerce-trends-2018 [9]http://voysis.com/ [10]https://nativeadvertisinginstitute.com/blog/ai-push-limits-native-advertising/ [11]http://blog.unibulmerchantservices.com/fun-geolocation-and-the-starbucks-way-to-mobile-payments/ [12]https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/micro-moments/micro-moments-understand-new-consumer-behavior/ [13]https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/micro-moments/micromoments-guide-pdf-download/ [14]http://www.goldmansachs.com/our-thinking/pages/technology-driving-innovation-folder/virtual-and-augmented-reality/report.pdf [15]https://www.retaildive.com/ex/mobilecommercedaily/image-recognition-increasingly-an-app-must-have-as-scanning-gains-acceptance
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