M-commerce is the term that describes the act of using a smart phone or tablet to make purchases online. A recent infographic shows us that mobile commerce is growing at an unprecedented rate, surpassing e-commerce growth by a rate of 200 percent and creating an online environment where mobile sales and mobile applications marketing are bursting with possibilities.
With more than four billion smart phones in use today throughout the world, the statistics reported back on the possibilities of m-commerce are staggering. Here are some of the most encouraging highlights.
- Almost half of all online buyers shop for merchandise on their mobile devices. This is clear indication that brands who don’t offer fully functional m-commerce capability on their websites are losing one out of every two potential buyers.
- For every $10 consumers spend on e-commerce, $1 is spent making purchases through their mobile devices. Although that may not sound like much, when added together m-commerce sales totaled nearly five billion dollars in sales in the third quarter of 2013.
- Consumer confidence in m-commerce is on a great upswing, with 63 percent of people saying that they plan to use their mobile devices more often in the coming several years. Where once there existed concerns for transmitting credit card data over mobile devices, improvements in security are turning smart phone sales into the big payday of tomorrow for retailers everywhere.
- Businesses that offer the ability to purchase easily on mobile devices have a more favorable opinion in the eyes of consumers. A growing majority of consumers – 61 percent – say that their opinion of a brand or company is improved by the ease and ready availability of mobile purchasing.
- Although the number of people who use tablets to make m-commerce purchases is half that of smart phone shoppers, tablet owners spend 20 percent more on average. This emphasizes the need for business owners to create a better overall mobile user experience, ensuring their websites and online storefronts render easily across the greatest number of mobile devices.
- Mobile shoppers buy apparel and accessories at a greater rate than any other items sold online, with computer hardware coming in a close second. When broken down to a per-dollar basis, accessory purchases and video games rake in the most money for items bought via e-commerce. Bear in mind, this doesn’t mean that retailers who sell other types of merchandise do poorly with m-commerce.
- Despite the rising popularity of m-commerce, traditional email marketing is alive and well and accounts for a great percentage of sales made through m-commerce. More people than ever are reading their emails on their mobile devices, with 64 percent indicating that the ability to visit a retailer’s website and make mobile purchases is critical to converting email recipients to buyers.
- For every dollar spent on email marketing, the return on investment for the average retailer is $44.25.
- Some of the biggest and most successful companies in the world – including Apple, Amazon and WalMart – are taking full advantage of the mobile revolution to rake in billions of dollars in sales every year.
What do all of these stats really mean for the average business owner? In short, it means that those who have yet to embrace the mobile commerce sphere are sitting idly by as the parade goes by. With each passing day, brands that haven’t hopped onto the mobile bandwagon are allowing potential sales to slip through their fingers – going instead to those companies that are savvy enough to invest in significant improvements to their online marketing efforts.
Artisan Talent can help business owners connect with mobile marketing specialists and mobile app developers to take advantage of this ripe opportunity. Contact us today to learn more.
