In 2020, there will be 4.28 billion mobile internet users, which means that more than 90% of internet users will be using a mobile device.
These people used social media, read the news, and went to the theatres. However, their antics went beyond amusement. Many of those 4.28 billion people also used mobile commerce to buy and sell goods.
E Commerce has transformed the way we buy things. The way we buy things has changed thanks to mobile commerce. Continue reading to find out what mobile commerce is, what the latest trends are, and how you can improve your m-commerce success.
- Any business transaction that takes place using a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet is referred to as mobile commerce (also known as m-commerce).
- Between 2016 and 2021, mobile commerce's proportion of overall ecommerce climbed by 39.1%, from 52.4 to 72.9 percent.
- Delivering an outstanding mobile experience, optimizing their website for organic search, and offering numerous payment methods are all ways for brands to boost their mobile commerce performance.
What is the definition of mobile commerce?
Any transaction that takes place using a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet is referred to as mobile commerce (also known as m-commerce). It contains ecommerce, but it also covers a lot more.
Mobile commerce examples
In general, there are three different forms of m-commerce:
- Mobile Shopping: This refers to purchases made through ecommerce websites, dedicated shopping apps (both Android and iOS), social media platforms, and marketplaces.
- Mobile Banking: This is usually done using a specific mobile app. Users can utilise mobile devices to make deposits, pay bills, and initiate mobile money transfers through online banking m-commerce applications.
- Mobile Payments: This category includes both the ability to make payments online as well as contactless payments made in physical stores. Consider Apple Pay, PayPal, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, and other similar services. These mobile apps are commonly referred to as "digital wallets" or "mobile wallets," and they function similarly to credit or debit cards.
Statistics and trends in mobile commerce
Throughout the 2020s, the number of mobile users is expected to skyrocket. Furthermore, eMarketer estimates a global market volume of over $3.5 trillion in 2021. As a result, it's safe to conclude that mobile commerce isn't going away anytime soon. In fact, due to the pandemic's impact, it's expected to account for a significantly bigger portion of retail sales in the future.
The percentage of overall ecommerce sales attributed to mobile commerce has been constantly increasing. Between 2016 and 2021, m-proportion commerce's of total ecommerce climbed by 39.1%, from 52.4 to 72.9 percent.
To put it another way, about 3/4 of all online business transactions are conducted on a mobile device.
People in the United States now spend 234 minutes a day on their mobile devices, up from 188 minutes in 2016.
What's fueling the rise of mobile commerce? While there are various variables, the lowering costs of mobile devices and the widespread availability of fast cellular data networks are two of the most important.
Mobile commerce trends are influenced by income levels as well. With fewer credit cards and other traditional banking options available to lower-income consumers, mobile devices are frequently the only way they can complete an online transaction.
Furthermore, as a result of the pandemic, consumers were faced with tighter limitations and greater barriers to shopping in person at brick and mortar establishments, mobile commerce gave an opportunity for more convenient shopping.
The Benefits of Mobile Commerce
There are various advantages to mobile commerce for both brands and consumers that business owners should consider.
Boost e-commerce sales
Increased ecommerce sales is perhaps the most evident benefit for brands. Customers find mobile commerce to be significantly more convenient than purchasing on a PC in many circumstances.
They can buy almost anything in a matter of minutes with only a few taps on their phone. The process is significantly faster and easier with the integration of payment options (such as Apple Pay or Fast) that don't require consumers to enter their credit card information.
In addition, social media sites such as Instagram and Facebook are increasingly allowing firms to sell directly from their apps, significantly broadening the reach of electronic commerce. This means customers may make a purchase while perusing their social media feeds on their phones, eliminating the need to navigate to another website.
An omnichannel experience in its purest form
Consumers get a true omnichannel experience with mobile marketing at every stage of the buying process. A customer can use their mobile device to study things, then go into a store and try them on before making a purchase in person or online.
Customers can now investigate and "try" things without ever leaving their homes, thanks to augmented reality mobile commerce apps like those used by Sephora and Ikea. Furthermore, chatbots and messenger applications enable marketers to interact with their customers on apps and platforms that they currently use.As a result, the digital and in-store customer experiences are identical.
M-commerce helps businesses to reach out to their clients wherever they are. It allows businesses to provide clients with an unrivalled online buying experience while also providing them with new marketing and customer engagement opportunities.
Methods for enhancing mobile commerce performance
Your website may be mobile-friendly, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's mobile-friendly for business. According to Dynamic Yield:Only around one out of every eight people finds shopping on mobile websites to be convenient.
Consumers are four times more likely to claim that purchasing on a desktop is more convenient than shopping on a mobile website when questioned.
- When it comes to mobile commerce, there's clearly a lot of opportunity for improvement. Here are a few crucial ideas to help you improve.
Provide a fantastic mobile experience.
Focus first and foremost on providing an outstanding mobile consumer experience. Many businesses are focusing on creating a mobile-first web experience. In other words, their mobile sites frequently differ from their desktop counterparts, and their pages are tailored to meet the unique problems of mobile browsing. Because the mobile user experience can be smoother for clients, companies who achieve this frequently notice an increase in conversion rates.
Every page should be clear and intuitive to use, and navigation should be straightforward. Text and images should be easily readable without having to zoom in on them. There should be as few steps as feasible in the mobile checkout process, and several payment alternatives should be provided.
Customers are more likely to return if you provide them with a better mobile experience.
Make your website organically searchable.
Organic search is responsible for a large portion of mobile commerce, with Google accounting for 46% of all product searches. As a result, it's critical that your website is optimised for mobile organic search.
You may optimise your site for mobile search in a variety of ways, including:
- Product pages should be optimised.
- Use internal connections strategically to create high-value digital content.
Learn how to use Google's mobile-first index.
Google's mobile-first index means that a site's mobile version, rather than its desktop version, is now used to index and rank it.
Google suggests the following best practises to help you rank as high as possible in search results:
- Ensure that Googlebot can access and render your material, and that the content is consistent across desktop and mobile devices.
- Make sure that structured data is present on both versions of your site if you have it.
- On both versions of your site, use the same metadata.
- When showing ads on mobile device
- Use web design that is responsive.
- Use a site structure that is easy to understand.
- To increase your customer base, optimise for non-branded terms.
- Long-tail keywords should be used.
- With SEO, you can target the full conversion funnel.
- Make your category pages more relevant and useful by adding relevant and useful material.
- Make sure your images and videos look good on mobile devices.
In the end, Google merely wants to make sure that when mobile consumers click on a search result and wind up on your site, they have a good time. Implementing Google's suggestions not only enhances your search rankings, but it also gives your clients a better mobile shopping experience.
Use data markup that is structured.
Structured data markup is a technique for embedding structured data into web pages so that search engines can better comprehend what the pages are about.
The "product" markup, for example, adds specific data about products, such as a description, price, reviews, delivery information, special offers, and so on. Not only does this help Google better comprehend that website, but structured data is frequently displayed immediately within search results. When this occurs, your real estate on the search results page expands, increasing the likelihood that someone will click on your product.
To acquire more clicks and, eventually, more revenues, use organised data whenever possible.
Improve page load time by accelerating the Google Web Essentials.
Both search engine optimization and the mobile commerce experience rely on page load speed and Google Core Web Vitals. The speed with which web pages load is referred to as page speed. Google Core Web Vitals (CWV) is a set of metrics that may be used to assess page quality and user experience with your website's pages.
Three page speed and interaction aspects are considered in the metric:
- The Most Contented Paint
- Delay in the first input
- Cumulative Layout Shift.
The speed with which pages load and may be accessed is an important part of providing a great user experience. Google wants to know how soon your material can be interacted with by users. When a user clicks on a search result and the page takes a long time to load, the user has a negative experience. Many studies have been conducted throughout the years that show how a slow-loading page has a detrimental impact on conversions.
Google Search Console's Enhancements area will show you how your pages are performing in terms of page speed and Core Web Vitals, as well as providing practical ideas for improvement. Begin by identifying the critical pages that are underperforming so that you can enhance them immediately. Move on to the next step once those have been improved.
Get ready for voice searches.
Spoken-word searches are gaining traction in the mobile commerce space. By 2022, it's expected that voice search will generate $40 billion in revenue.
So, how can you make your website more voice search friendly?
- Concentrate on reducing the time it takes for your pages to load. Because voice search is more conversational, Google will not rank pages that take too long to load high enough in voice search.
- Answer questions in a concise manner. The fact that voice searches are mainly question-driven should be reflected in your content.
- Use long tail keywords that reflect how people speak in real life.
- Keep your information straightforward and clear of jargon. Complicated words may not always be understood by voice assistants.
Image and video optimization
Images and videos must be optimised for mobile devices in order to load quickly and display correctly. This is a delicate balance to strike. On the one hand, you want your images and videos to be appealing to customers. On the other side, if they don't display correctly, they have the potential to significantly delay page speed or disrupt the m-commerce experience.
Images can be compressed using software like TinyJPG or Optimole to make them load faster without sacrificing quality.
Other options for image and video optimization include:
- Place photos near text that is relevant.
- To offer context, include descriptive titles, captions, filenames, and text.
User-friendly navigation should be implemented.
Your site should be simple to navigate because to the lower screen size of portable devices. Use faceted navigation or intuitive design to logically organise your information so that customers can swiftly locate what they're looking for.
Breadcrumbs can be used to help users find their location at any time. They also make it simpler for visitors to return to a specific section without having to continuously press the back button.
Make it easy to find contact information and FAQ sites. If your consumers have a lot of queries, you might want to use a live chat feature to address their concerns right away.
Provide a variety of payment options
Offer alternatives to traditional credit cards, such as PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Amazon Pay, Samsung Pay, Venmo, Fast, or other app payments, in addition to standard credit cards. As cryptocurrencies acquire widespread popularity around the world, some businesses have begun to accept them.
Because consumers don't have to enter their credit card information, offering multiple payment methods for m-commerce minimises friction and may enhance conversion rates. Furthermore, various buyers have varied shopping habits and interests.
Make use of retargeting.
Retargeting allows you to go out to customers who have shown interest in your product or service through a variety of activities but subsequently left your website. For example, someone might use Google to look for a product, visit your website, or add an item to their shopping cart in your online store, but then depart before making a purchase.
Retargeting allows you to boost the effectiveness of your digital marketing campaigns. A person might, for example, come upon your website on the internet as a result of a Google search. You can track them around the internet with adverts targeted to drive them back to your site and finally make a purchase via retargeting.
Retargeting can be done using a search engine, a website, or an email.
Use push notifications if possible.
Another effective technique to contact a section of m-commerce clients is through push notifications. You can use them to target customers who are within a given distance of a store or at specific times of the day when they are more likely to make a purchase.
Push notifications can also be used to notify customers about new products and deals before they are advertised. Users will be more engaged if there is a sense of urgency and exclusivity.
Teach yourself to think "mobile"
You should invest in m-commerce if your business model involves selling online.
Consumers want a consistent buying experience regardless of whether they are shopping in a store, on a computer, or on a mobile device. You establish good consumer touch points, fuel brand loyalty, and position yourself effectively for the future by improving the mobile commerce experience.