We have observed the onset of ecommerce and the speed at which it became a part of our day-to-day lives. There has been an explosion in the field of online shopping with the internet being more popular every day. We all know that ecommerce is a continuously growing trend, but, did you know that mcommerce is growing more rapidly? Studies have shown that roughly 1.2 billion people use smartphones to access the internet every day. More than half of the population in the U.S alone is using their phones to connect to the internet.
Considering the number of smartphone users across the globe, it is quite understood why mcommerce is becoming a new trend in the market. However, there are still ecommerce retailers who have not gone mobile, serving unoptimized and unresponsive online ecommerce stores to the customers who are spending the majority of their time shopping on their smartphones. The result? They are leaving back many potential customers and their revenue on the desk! When it comes to selling online, you must learn all the important aspects to tap the right market in the right way at the right time. Too cliché, right? Well, let us spend some of our time in getting some valuable insights into mcommerce. In this blog, we will be discussing mcommerce and its importance in the ecommerce business.
What is mcommerce?
So, before learning the importance and other factors of mcommerce, let us first know, what exactly mcommerce is. Mcommerce is the abbreviation of mobile commerce which reflects the process of buying and selling goods and services using mobile devices including smartphones or tablets with the help of an internet connection. Mcommerce has today facilitated the accessibility of customers to the online goods and services as well as assure providing access to product information and connectivity round the clock. In simple words, mcommerce is a retail store in your customers’ pockets. Mcommerce is not a separate body. Instead, it is a sub-group of ecommerce. While ecommerce involves the buying and selling of goods and services on the internet using computers or desktops and laptops, mcommerce is the buying and selling of products and services on the internet using mobile phones or tablets and other portable wireless handheld devices with an internet connection.
The main aim of mcommerce is to ensure providing a convenient shopping experience to the customers using smaller screens seen on mobile devices. The major factors leading to the success of selling online today is to provide a mobile-friendly experience to the customers with a responsive store design to provide a user-friendly experience to the online consumers. The ecommerce retailers are gradually moving towards integrating mcommerce with their services by creating mobile applications catering to the current requirements in the retail industry. In a nutshell, mcommerce can be used as a medium to boost the overall revenue of the online selling business.
Why is mcommerce important?
Mcommerce is one of the major sources of that accelerates the growth of a business in this mobile world. Ecommerce businesses, whether small-scale or large-scale, find mobile applications as a useful tool to market their business to a wider set of audience. The online selling market is growing leaps and bounds today. In order to survive and succeed in this digital world, online sellers are inclining towards providing more convenience to their customers to develop loyalty and ensure sales. The best way to achieve this is by creating an ecommerce space, making it accessible to the majority of the population, and let anyone purchase the products easily, irrespective of the device they use to shop online.
The ultimate goal of creating an online store is to broaden the customer reach while building more opportunities. Online selling can help in boosting the sales along with expanding the target audiences. Moreover, the online sellers can start selling beyond the borders of their physical stores with an ecommerce store and when they go mobile, the chances of them getting sales doubles up as people are today looking for convenience; and what’s more convenient than being able to shop from anywhere, while in the bus, in the park, or simply while lying on the couch? Seems quite relaxing, right? That’s what mcommerce does – improvises the shopping experience by replacing arduous work with convenience. We have more; below are a few reasons depicting the importance of mcommerce in ecommerce in this fast-paced life:
Reason 1 – Increase in the use of smartphones and the internet
According to Statista, the mobile phone internet users in 2020 are 448.2 million which is estimated to be 55.9 million by 2023. It is the most basic and obvious reason to know the importance of mcommerce in ecommerce. More and more people now own a smartphone or a tablet and are also connected to the internet using these devices. Like physical store retailers summon customers as they see to come and visit their store once to check out the products they have for them, in online stores, the sellers need to approach the customers online. A physical store location is chosen based on many factors, one of which is the majority of the customers’ presence in or around that location. Similarly, in an online store, the sellers need to be present in the places where their potential customers are spending the majority of their time; yes, without a doubt, it’s on the mobile phones. Leaving you with a question here; how many times did you check your phone today?
Reason 2 – Faster Purchases
Did you know that mobile applications and mobile websites load 1.5 times faster than a web application or a traditional website? When using mobile devices, there is no need for pulling data from the server and therefore, customers can make purchases speedily. Since mobile apps and websites provide the same functionality, people prefer purchasing products and services directly from their smartphones than finding a suitable time to sit with their laptops or desktops. The annual revenue from mcommerce has significantly risen for a decade and is anticipated to continue growing in the coming years. The ecommerce giant, Amazon, witnessed 67 million customers in 2016 which was only 43 million with its mobile app alone. The reason for this rise is the intuitive mobile app settings that help in driving more sales.
Reason 3 – Mobile-Unfriendly Ecommerce Website Chase Away Customers
Given the continuously increasing number of internet and smartphone users today, it has become the biggest reason to provide a mobile-friendly shopping experience to your customers. Some of the ecommerce experts have stated that if you offer your customers a mobile-unfriendly ecommerce website, you are shooing away your target audience as well as your loyal customers. A study shows that 67% of online shoppers are more likely to purchase from a mobile-friendly ecommerce website and about 61% of the online shoppers are more likely to leave a mobile-unfriendly ecommerce website. It’s not just the customers who back off from a mobile-unfriendly website, but, the customers’ expectations from a brand are laid down drastically with a bad mobile shopping experience. According to a survey, 52% of the customers are less likely to engage with an online store that lacks mobile-friendliness and more than 48% of customers believe that not having a mobile-friendly website is synonymous with not caring about the customers’ needs as well as the online selling business. Additionally, a good mobile shopping experience is studied to work on 61% of people by improvising the brand image of the business.
Reason 4 – Innovation Improvises the Ecommerce Business
Technological advances and innovation are the most important factors when selling online. Every online selling business is focusing on providing a one-step better experience to the customers than the rest in the market in order to dominate the ecommerce market. The traditional approach of competing with the rest, especially the ecommerce giants, has been changed now to using innovative and unique ideas for unconventional customer experience. Every brand is running the rat race of improvising their services, eventually enhancing the user experience. Many major brands have now started enhancing user experiences and consider it as a major marketing strategy to acquire newer customers. Some of the widely used latest innovative technology includes AI, chatbots, and various single-click options. Artificial Intelligence or AI as well as chatbots are two of the latest technological integrations in mcommerce for enhancing the shopping experience of the customers. Chatbots and AI voice assistants are integrated with various shopping apps as well as smartphones to ease the process of shopping from mobile phones. It has helped to eliminate some of the time-consuming steps of online shopping such as manually typing the product name, searching the products, making payments, and entering the address details. This increased the population willing to purchase using mcommerce.
Conclusion
With above 1 billion people using smartphones to access the internet every day, mobile applications and mcommerce continue to grow. Moreover, mobile shopping is a trend unlike any other which has taken up 1/3rd of the ecommerce industry, already. Name it anything, ecommerce apps, shopping apps, or retail apps; they are growing exponentially and are therefore quite important in the ecommerce business.
