'On the go' is a phrase that best suits and best fits the E&M commerce industry of today's era. The invention of ecommerce industry dates back to 1991 with the old notion of 'sell & buy'. 2000 was the year that witnessed the online retailing business actually taking a turn, the time when numerous businesses in United States and Europe started to sell their services on the World Wide Web. By the end of the year 2001, only $700 worth of transactions were processed for B2B model.
Till 2016's last sunset, Americans alone spent a record $3.34 billion on online shopping in Black Friday, according to a report by Adobe Systems Inc, surpassing the 2015's $3 billion mark. It was the first time in retail history that through mobile commerce, a revenue of over $1 billion was collected in the United States. After US, China is the country where the global ecommerce market is at its zenith. A Single's Day sales by Ali Baba Group smashed the last year's record with 120.7 billion Yuan ($17.73 billion) worth of sales on 11th November, 2016. Approximately 82% of the total orders were made through mobile devices (smartphones and tablets). With such whopping statistics, it can be safely said that people around the world have established their confidence in online payments; however for mobile payments, there is still a long way to go.
No matter how appealing and promising the stats appear, more than half of the consumers' community constituting global retail enterprise still shops offline. The ones who do shop online prefer desktop over mobile for numerous reasons. US adults spent 59% of their time on mobile but spent only 15% of their dollars as compared to 85% dollars spent on desktop in second quarter of 2015. Also, according to Listrak (a digital marketing firm), 77% consumers abandoned their shopping carts after adding different products to their carts. There must be reasons behind consumers' behavior of trusting desktops over mobile phones.
The most common factor that discourages a consumer is the unavailability of mobile friendly merchant websites. Mobile shopping becomes a nightmare for shoppers due to the small screen size and on top of that, most of the ecommerce merchants do not invest in the responsiveness of the websites.
Consumers do not feel safe entering their card information on mobile devices. The speed issue is one of the biggest factors that takes away a customer from buying something on mobile.
Desktop websites that are badly reformatted for mobile devices look sketchy and less trustworthy. The companies which invest in online shopping events tend to have driving factors like increased investor's confidence, using shopping as a social activity (consumers buy something and post online on social media which ultimately increases the brand popularity and reputation), online to offline marketing (if the consumers do not purchase online, they might visit the store due to recognized brand), etc. However, in an attempt to further enhance consumers' interest in mobile commerce, the concerned parties can try the following strategies and technologies:
Exciting Discounts through Innovative Means: there are many brands and online merchants' hubs nowadays that offer their own mobile apps (for example Starbucks). These apps can offer exciting discounts and loyalty points in a way that engages the customer's attention. For instance if a merchant places hidden gifts (eg: QR Coded Coupons) in a physical store for customers to locate and find on mobile apps, this will not only tempt the customer to install app but will also engage them to buy something online if the strategy is made that way.
Using Augmented Reality: AR/VR is the new cool in E&M commerce arena. Merchants can give the flexibility of trying products on the mobile especially the goods that require fitting (shoes, dresses, eyewear, jewelry, etc). Through this, consumers will be more comfortable in buying such kind of a product online and will also be encouraged toward mobile shopping.
QR Payments: QR Payments have been widely used nowadays across different mobile apps and platforms. Merchants can advertise their products online or offline using QR codes which contain the price of the goods, the product ID, discount coupons, links to eStore and similar information. When a customer scans the code, the only thing that he needs to do is select the instrument for payment. This can shrink the process of purchasing through mobile apps and is one of the least troublesome approaches for a customer.
Beacon Technology: web-rooming is a similar practice as show-rooming and a concept merchants should keep in their future roadmap. About 70 percent of PWC's (a global research collective) consumer base browse products online and compare prices before buying in-store. U.S. Web Influenced Retail Sales Forecast foresees technology like Beacon prevailing in the coming years. According to the forecast, 38 percent of the offline sales will be made on the basis of what consumers researched online while standing under the store's roof. Beacon is a small hardware device which utilizes Bluetooth's low energy that can catch consumers' shopping specific smartphone apps and send promotional messages and coupons. What sets it apart from other technologies is its ability to wake up an app that a consumer would have installed long time ago.
If merchants want their customers to spend as much through mobile apps as desktops, it is needed that the consumers are educated and enticed through several means & measures and attracted with the latest technological wonders that the mobile realm has to offer.
TPS' Mobile App Payaxis, a payment gateway solution by TPS, offers mobile app that facilitates customers in a number of ways including QR Payments, multiple payment methods and much more. Payaxis also provides a dispute management option using which a customer can raise disputes over defected or delayed goods.
TPS is a global provider of cards and payment solutions, with two decades of focused domain expertise. TPS customer base spans across Middle East, South Asia, Africa and Europe with an increasing footprint across other regions. TPS prides itself in providing reliable, flexible and sustainable software solutions. From inception, design and testing to implementation, upgrades and support, TPS is always committed to excellence that exceeds expectations.