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IBM Predicting Tomorrow’s World

December 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Not all eCommerce platforms are created equal.

If I’ve learned anything from working alongside eCommerce platform developers over the last year it’s that legacy code will kill you.

There is no point investing in a platform if it’s already out of date.

There is no point investing in a platform if the cost of maintaining it is out of proportion to other solutions.

There is no point investing in a platform if it’s not future-proof.

 

One Web, Multiple Devices

I’m a great believer in ‘One Web, Multiple Devices’, but that doesn’t stop eCommerce managers and directors from searching online for “mobile website solutions” and wondering what mobile platform they should invest in.

The truth is that even if you can get past the sales pitch and evaluate a mobile platform’s functionality, you need to know if your investment has the right type of foundation so that you can build upon it over the next five years.

For example, if you bought a high-spec PC today you would want it to be easy to upgrade.

If someone tells you in 12 months time that you need a new motherboard, CPU and GPU, you’re actually changing the guts of the machine – and you were sold the wrong solution. The same principle applies to the technology you’re going to use to enable all internet capable devices to display your website in a user-friendly way.

 

IBM’s Predictions

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of how mobile is changing our lives.

Paul Bloom, IBM’s Chief Technology Officer for Telco Research, has written an excellent blogpost on the matter.

“Your mobile device knows where you’re going, where you’ve gone, what you’ve bought, where other people have gone and bought, and other data that could change the way people start thinking about their daily routines”.

Barely a week old, the article contains a lot more substance than the obligatory lip service you’re likely to come across on Mashable.

Predictive analytics is just one of the ideas Paul Bloom touches upon and the whole piece is likely to fire the imaginations of all tech enthusiasts. It’s highly recommended reading.

If you were developing a mobile platform solution that incorporates mCommerce, it certainly makes sense to be aware of what mobile developments are just around the corner.

 

Marketing vs Innovation

Apple’s success in hardware has been built on giving people what they need just before they realised they needed it. If you’re waiting on your customers to tell you want they want, then even in a software as a service environment, you’re failing to be proactive.

Innovation is an easy word to throw around. It’s much more difficult to execute it.

When you’re researching, don’t confuse slick online marketing with software innovations.

After all, the best software developers I know couldn’t market a product if their lives depended on it! And that’s a good thing.

 

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The Year That Mobile Saved Retailers?

December 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

As shoppers play chicken with the high street, waiting on the inevitable Christmas sales and discounts to begin, retailers can at least be thankful for online shopping through mobiles.

Making money from mCommerce and/or social commerce (think Facebook pages that can handle payment) is providing much needed revenue.

The UK media in particular has talked so much about budget cuts and austerity that it’s not surprising that consumer confidence is low.

To know which way the wind is blowing in relation to mobile eCommerce, you only have to look as far as Google.

Where Google goes, there’s money to be made. Affiliates discovered that in 2011 as evidence appeared suggesting that the search giant is less than happy with others making money where it could be. Well, it is the world’s biggest ad man after all.

So the huge push towards making the web mobile-friendly shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, if we spend more time online with devices, that’s more time when we can be subjected to ads.

But does the claim that “Mobile turned a corner this year” really hold up?

Compared to the previous year or two, the answer is probably yes although it depends what you mean by turn a corner.

 

Let’s crunch some Mobile Commerce numbers from eConsultancy via IMRG.

“During Q2 2011 visits to e-commerce sites from mobile devices accounted for 7% of overall traffic, up from an average of 1.4% in Q1 2010.

The research also shows that UK mobile shoppers are buying more and are now making 3.3% of e-commerce purchases from mobile devices. This is an increase from 0.4% at the beginning of 2010.”

 

The day eConsultancy published this article, I was completing a mobile commerce analytics report for a client (a high street fashion brand). The client’s mobile revenue was coincidentally 3.3% of their total. Looking at various other clients, the trend is repeated and starts to look familiar.

So far the rise is unlikely to make any SME MDs or CEOs lose any sleep over missed opportunities.

However, this was looking at data before entering the end of year shopping spike.

 

In America, the holiday season has revealed exactly how valuable mobile sales can be.

“Last January, mobile was 2 percent of our sales and this holiday season, one out of three sales is coming via mobile,” one retailer said. “Every month I think we’ve hit a high in terms of mobile growth and the next month it keeps growing.”

One out of three sales is staggering.

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Google Wallet: The Beautiful Data Thief

December 12, 2011 By 1 Comment

 

The beautiful thief.

It’s impossible to blog about mobile ecommerce without talking about micro payments and the likes of Google Wallet.

Google, the biggest data parasite thief and ad saleperson in the world, makes its money from selling ads targeted using your information.

The more information Google can steal get you to hand over about yourself, the more money it can make from ads.

While its marketing team have created a fantastically non-corporate image of itself, it is in truth a beautiful thief.

And everyone loves a pretty girl.

The love/hate relationship I have with the world’s biggest search engine is always in a state of flux.

Love because they’re always throwing brilliantly marketed freebies at us, from Gmail to Google Maps. And we happily take them because we love “free”.

Hate because when you read what Google actually gets up to over at SEObook, it’s impossible not to get angry. There is no other business on earth who can get away with the things they do.

If aggressively trying to obtain your mobile number via email “security” isn’t intrusive enough for you, there’s now Google Wallet.

However, we’re much more likely to show resistance when asked to share our financial details as opposed to sharing with Google what we write and receive in emails, so a much sexier approach will be required.

Google Wallet is a smart, virtual data collector for in-store and online shopping.

It’s Catwoman’s dream data collecting device and as a result, expect her to smile and flutter her big eyelashes at you until you cave in and say, “I suppose there’s no harm in it really…”, at which point it’s no longer theft. You agreed to it.

Google Wallet: coming soon to UK?

Will you bother to read any of the epically long Terms and Conditions that will come with it? Of course not.

Nobody ever reads the T&Cs. If you did you’d never install software like iTunes in the first place.

The idea of making your phone your wallet has been kicking around now for some time. And whenever there’s data to monopolise, you can be sure that the big G will not be far behind.

The personal security issues are huge when you consider how easily some people lose their mobile phones. There’s also the issue of adoption rate. For all the fuss about QR codes, for example, their use is still relatively low.  

It’s a given that tablets and smartphones alongside iPads and iPhones will soon be generating online sales figures that dwarf those of the desktop.  Therefore, micropayments is a battleground that will soon be fought in the UK.

The question is what will your response be when faced with those eyelashes?

Who are you willing to share your financial data with? Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, IBM, and Google would all like to know. And that’s before we get onto the subject of mobile phone providers selling your data to 3rd parties.

UPDATE 14.12.11 – The smart folks over at PPChero (well, @daverosborough anyway) have just blogged about how Google Wallet and online shopping could change in 2012. Useful advice if you’re a SMB, entrepreneur or just super curious.

 

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