Barclays Corporate has announced that mobile commerce (m-commerce) is expected to reach £19.3 billion by 2021. These figures are 15 times higher than current spending of £1.3 billion.
Currently 52% of consumers use a mobile device at one or more stages of the shopping process. This highlights the importance of taking into account that mobile phones play a key part in purchasing behaviour. Retailers should be thinking about making mobile a core part of their strategy in the near future, as an increasing number of consumers reach for their phones when shopping.
The report from Barclays Corporate states that m-commerce is expected to increase by 55 %, whilst online sales are only expected to grow by 8 percent. They have contributed technological improvements to m-commerce growth such as 4G and Near Field Communications.
91% of adults in the UK own a mobile phone and there are 33.1 million 3G mobile subscriptions (Source: Ofcom) so the reach of m-commerce is huge. Unsurprisingly Argos, Tesco, Asda and Next are among the ten most visited websites via mobile. If retailers want to reach their consumers, then having a mobile optimised website is crucial. Even if transactions aren’t possible, mobile can form the research stage of the shopping process and contribute to the final purchase.
The potential of m-commerce has been proven by the online fashion retailer ASOS. They have reported an 800% year-on-year growth in mobile revenues and currently generate £1 million a month in revenue through the mobile site. The ease of use and accessibility of mobile makes it the ideal way to fit in shopping into a busy lifestyle. Retailers who don’t have m-commerce sites could be losing out a large proportion of sales.
M-commerce is set to revolutionise consumer purchasing habits and retailers need to start taking action now. Leave a comment and let us know what you think about m-commerce.
Report via Barclays Corporate
[...] The expected increase of M-Commerce has already indicated how consumers purchasing behaviour is changing and this will no doubt filter through to other aspects of their life including socialising and entertainment. Therefore, I think it is incredibly likely that the current record for single-day application downloads will be broken in the near future. [...]