The Mobile Shopping Experience

Mobile commerce is the new emerging technology in the market today. Although not a lot of people are using it as of now, it has become a relevant market driver. Smartphones and mobile apps have made the online shopping experience a more mobile practice.  A recent study conducted by ForeSee, participated by no less than ten thousand people revealed that 11% of them used mobile shopping over last years holidays. This may be a small number, but it is significantly higher compared to the previous years.

Apart from purchasing different products, most customers used  their mobile phones to look up prices, compare products and look for store locations. The study further showed that customers who were happy with their mobile shopping experience were more likely to buy the product online and in-store.  According to Infographics, more than half of mobile users use their devices to call, text or picture message someone before they buy a product from a store. Half of the population also use their phones to look up store addresses and store hours. Around 40% use mobile commerce to look up product details, compare prices and check their online order status, only 35% make their actual purchase via mobile shops.

With over a quarter of mobile users prepared to make big purchases that go over  $100 in mobile shopping, we can see consumers are slowly embracing the mobile commerce trend. Among those making their purchases through their phones, products being purchased mainly falls on the entertainment category. Most purchases are for music, games, movies, tickets and books. According to ABI Research, people are also purchasing travel related items, computers and electronics, office supplies, clothing and accessories and even home furnishings. According to Paypal, their mobile transactions have peaked with over $500 million worth of mobile purchases compare to the $25 million people spent in 2008.  eBay was able to get over 100% increase on its sales through their mobile shopping app.

Mobile shopping apps play a large part in mobile commerce, or m-commerce as it is being fondly called. As of this time an estimated 10% of retailers have an m-commerce site with the rest of the gang to follow suit in the coming months. Even though it is still early in the year, a few mobile shopping apps have already started making a buzz as the top mobile apps to snag. Among them are 1-800-flowers.com, Amazon.com, Apple App Store, Barnes & Noble, The Catholic Company, eBay, ShopNBC.com, Wallgreens, Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger.

For now it seems that mobile shopping is still taking a supplementary role to online and in-store shopping. The mobile shopping experience takes a lot of its features from online shopping. In essence it is the same, except for the device and apps used by the customers. However, market leaders are optimistic that with the smartphone explosion, mobile commerce will definitely boom as shoppers start to embrace and trust the technology, very much like it did with online shopping.

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