M-commerce — The Rising Trend Of 2017 Holiday Season
As we mentioned in our article on February 3, 2016, nowadays in the eCommerce industry “40% of customers in Asia and 30% in the US and Europe buy things via phone, tablet or smartwatch”. As a result, we can expect 2017 to be a turning point for mobile commerce in Europe and North America.
No matter whether people use their smart devices to make a final purchase, it’s important to consider the overall shopping process as a whole, especially when it comes to holiday sales when people tend to choose and buy the gifts on the go.
Let’s take a look at how the eCommerce market has shifted from mcommerce into an omnichannel approach of shopping since 2016.
But first, let’s make it clear what mcommerce stands for.
Mcommerce — shorten from mobile commerce introduces MOBILE (including all mobile devices as tablets, smartphones, smartwatches, etc…) as the main medium for searching for products, compare prices and make payments effortlessly.
Here is a predictive scale of ecommerce revenue by device by BYYD blog.
Don’t Stay Behind, Follow The Trends!
What are the deciding factors for customers this year? How has their purchase behaviour changed over time and why? It is crucial to understand how many of these questions and factors overlap and to be aware of how all of these separate areas of business are interconnected.
Mcommerce Trend No 1? DELIVERY Over Everything
When we forecasted the trend in delivery methods for 2017, we were talking about the next day or (to be very optimistic) same day delivery. Now, over 80% of customers expect the same day delivery within 3 hours. Setting this as a standard of delivery service will increase customer experience which is vital for online businesses trying to meet their competition.
Are you able to meet this expectation?
Read the following trends that are unfolding and by meeting them step by step, you’ll be that much closer to being prepared for a successful and busy holiday season.
1. Buy Online, Pick-Up In Store
This method became so popular that it has its own abbreviation BOPIS but it’s not a new innovation for modern customers who have come to expect this style of consumerism. While it may have been an optional way for those who didn’t like in-store shopping, nowadays it’s become a trend that saves plenty of shopper time and can even increase a seller’s revenue by appealing to convenience.
If you don’t have your brick-and-mortar store yet, find some other points where the items can be delivered and picked up. Pay attention to choosing the best carrier as well. Try to push the delivery time to the minimum in order to reap the advantage of keeping your customers happy.
If you have a brick-and-mortar store or a chance to place your products at a pick-up point, view it as a second opportunity to sell to an already engaged customer. Positioning relevant inventory close to BOPIS desks can have a major impact on increasing average order value.
“49% of respondents said they were likely to purchase additional item some of the time, when picking up their online order.” — by invesp
2. Rapid Growth Of Mobile Payments
Another criterion of successful providing mobile customer experience is making mobile payments available. Highlights for 2017 include mobile wallets and NFC technology.
- Mobile wallets are a convenient and unified method for both online and offline purchases. It’s faster and easier as a tap-to-pay purchase than typical card payment, and there are few hurdles to implementing it as a viable option — all you and your customers need is an Internet connection. Incorporating mobile wallets for merchants means having another communication channel available as well as a valuable data source. And this, in turn, makes it even easier to include personalized promotion or create loyalty programs.
- Bluetooth — Thanks to NFC (near field communication) technology, mobile payments are put on a higher level as there’s no need for a standard Internet connection. Basically, it works on pre-existing Bluetooth technology which is already widespread and a staple consumer tool in 2017.
- Artificial Intelligence — new smarter mobile assistants educated by Google’s data provide consumers with information based on their online habits and searches, from alerting them to special offers to notifying them of new items they may like. These assistants are extremely useful, and we can expect them to become even more popular as consumers become more dependent on their smart devices.
What’s the impact of AI on banking and payments? That’s the main topic of the Mobile Payment Conference taking place in Chicago 28–30 August. For not, let’s see how far this can be developed and what it brings for mcommerce in the next few decades.
3. Desktop Web Store Or Mobile App?
You may wonder whether it still makes sense to run your online store on a regular desktop or whether it’s better to focus on developing the app when the whole ecommerce will be closely connected with mcommerce.
Both make sense. But using available statistics matters hugely in terms of deciding on which platform is best — the question is how consumers behave when using different types of devices.
While mobile receive loads more traffic than desktop, in the end it’s desktops that generates higher revenue. It’s most likely caused by an imperfect mobile user experience which is being overhauled thanks to companies like Shopgate. They create beautiful and high-converting mobile shopping apps, and help with mobile marketing to boost customer retention.
We are ready! Are you?
To follow the trends, especially when they change, doesn’t mean only incorporating POS systems and giving extension to delivery and payment options, but also fostering an overall change in customer’s perspectives — in particular, about how they view, utilize, and track their results.
Always try to put yourself in the shoes of your clients, and strive to make everything as easy and friendly as possible in order to save time and money, and this will go a long way toward showing them you care.
We at MonkeyData know how time-consuming data analytics is, which is why we bring you all the necessary metrics displayed in beautiful clear dashboards.
Moreover, it’s available as a mobile version too! Find it in your App Store (for iOS) or Google Play (for Android) and keep all the crucial data in your pocket.
What to track and why?
- Visits — track the location. It helps when you consider opening a brick-and-mortar store or pick-up point. The location with the highest traffic wins
- Device — design the content for specific devices according to the customer behaviour.
- Shipping & payment methods
MonkeyData app displays a detailed overview of all shipping and payments methods you use, and you can track and compare them with other segments such as product, revenue or customer ID to see preferences
- Average Order Processing Time
his useful metric informs you about the time period needed for successful delivering item, and can help steer your process toward that coveted 3 hour delivery time!
Average Order Value (per store)
- POS module tracks the performance of your physical stores, so you can know when and how to motivate your staff to enhance their sales abilities by increasing average order value of online orders when they’re picked up by customers.
Conclusion
Mobile devices are part of our daily lives and an inherent part of business. In order to adopt the idea of “looking through your customer’s eyes” in order to understand their purchasing behaviors, it’s important to look at our own preferences and what we as merchants expect from an eCommerce store.
The next step is to take a hard objective look at your own business model and consider the sorts of changes that will contribute to making the shopping process more convenient and accessible. Go to your data and design a solution for a specific group of customers. And at the end of the day, the love and care you’ve extend to your customers will be reciprocated — and you can turn off your phone and really enjoy the offline world!
