7 Trends that would reshape Mobile Commerce in 2016

M-Commerce an overview of Growth

There is no denying of the fact that we are living in a mobile obsessed world. From socializing to entertainment, paying bills to shopping every activity is going online thanks to the new age smartphones and other mobile devices. Developments and innovations in mobile technology have largely changed the business model for many online companies. The volume of online sales using mobile has seen a massive growth in the past 2 years and 2016 is going to pave the way for further developments that will revolutionize the M-commerce environment. A recent study conducted by the investment bank, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. estimates that M-commerce sales are going to reach a whopping $626 billion in 2018. These estimates clearly indicate that growth of M-commerce has far surpassed that of E-commerce and the ratio stands at 3:1 for Mobile commerce and Ecommerce.

Mobile technology has improved steadily in the recent years and has prompted various business owners to streamline and channelize their business especially for mobile buyers. M-commerce is the top priority for online sellers as this is the proven way to get better traction and boost sales. Mobile first technology is helping online sellers to offer better, faster and more customized deals to their customers. Anyone who wants to write a success story in online selling has to rely on mobile buyers and also multi-channel portable devices which are used for shopping and surfing by the modern users.

Mobile devices continue playing an increasingly important role in the purchase choices made by the buyers. This has prompted the retailers to work towards optimizing the usage of various mobile devices in improving their traffic and conversion rate for achieving higher sales. Research and studies conducted by various marketing solution providers suggest that 2016 is going to be a remarkable for mobile commerce. These studies have forecasted some interesting trends that would change M-commerce in 2016 and beyond.

M-Commerce Trends that Would Revolutionize online sales in 2016
 

1. M-Commerce would bring online selling closer to physical selling: The focus of the online retailors is to offer even better services and shopping experience to their buyers. The gap between physical and online world will be bridged by more and more businesses offering better logistics, delivery and pick up services. The focus this year is going to be on same day delivery which would give instant gratification to the buyers. The beacon technology will help enable features that integrate the online and offline shopping experience and engage customers through their personal devices. This technology alerts the online sellers when a customer enters or exits their store and thus helps in better and more personalized conversions.

 

2. Getting better conversion from Social Commerce: Social commerce has added a new dimension to online sales and advertising but the oft heard refrain is that the buy button is not clicked by visitors who land on the website via social campaigns. It is reported that 60% of online consumers use mobile devices to remain active on social media. Hence, it becomes imperative that integration of social media with mobile channels is streamlined in a better way. An important aspect of this integration would be to make the buy button work in favor of the retailer and bring in better sales.

 

3. Mobile web would remain a better performer than Apps: Trends in mobile shopping are clear indicator that although apps are extensively used by mobile consumers they do not have a very good conversion rate. Reports suggest that although 85% of customer time is spent on mobile apps only 20%-30% of the seller’s mobile sale comes via app based sales. In a survey more than half of the online sellers said that mobile apps would play limited role in their mobile sale strategy.

 

4. Mobile strategy to focus on better customer experience: Mobile users are a demanding lot and have been known to abandon the cart if the mobile sites are not performing optimally. Mobile users expect a site to load faster (4 seconds or lesser), abandon the cart if navigation is not smooth and easy and turn to competitor websites if the site they are surfing is not providing a seamless shopping experience. To make the most of mobile commerce the retailers will have to provide the best shopping experience to their consumers and hence need to work towards fulfilling customer expectations.

 

5. Improve payments using Mobile Wallets: The advent and growth of mobile wallets has been an interesting trend of mobile commerce. But the reality is that mobile wallets have not picked up and have been a slow performer in terms of mobile payments. Last 2 years have seen the release of mobile wallets like Apple Pay, Android Pay and Walmart but these have not been able to become the major payment channel. The main cause for the slow growth of mobile wallets is that they not seem to be offering more convenience to the users. This prompts the buyers to opt for conventional payment channels. It remains to be seen whether the mobile wallets are fine-tuned and provide additional benefits to the users. Despite the current slow pick up rate of the mobile wallets it is expected that they will grow by 210% in 2016.

 

6. Wearable devices will be trending in 2016: Wearable devices are all set to register almost 30% increase and would take IoT (Internet of Things) based sales to a new level. Broadly speaking The Internet of Things (IoT) creates a network in which physical objects (devices, buildings, vehicles) are embedded with electronics, software and network connectivity and these objects connect via the network to collect and exchange data. The increased usage of IOT products would open up a new channel of sales and data collection in mobile commerce and this trend would be dominating the online commerce in 2016 and beyond.

 

7. Mobile commerce Optimization: Mobile commerce is expected to register a staggering 300% growth. This is going to force the online retailers to optimize mobile buying experience for the users and offer seamless and easy checkout. Better customized deals based on the buying and surfing behavior of the user are going to be the focus on M-commerce sales in 2016.

It would be interesting to see how the m-commerce trends and forecasts would shape up the online market in 2016 and beyond. Feel free to share your views on growth and trends of m-commerce in our comments section given below.