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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