eCommerce reached new heights this year as Cyber Monday sales continued to overshadow physical retail sales in almost every consumer category. comScore estimated that Cyber Monday spending from desktop computers alone was $1.735b, which is up 18% from last year and represents the highest online spending day in history.
The holiday season is undoubtedly an important sales period altogether and consumer are migrating towards mobile holiday shopping. This year, mobile sales accounted for more than 17% of total online sales, an increase of 55% compared to last year. The growth in mCommerce (mobile commerce) is driven by the continued adoption of smartphones and tablets as well as the increased investment by brands in perfecting the mobile customer experience. Penetration of smartphones alone has reached 22% globally compared to 16% last year, as measured by BI Intelligence. Meanwhile, brands invested in the channel at record levels spending over $7b on advertising alone to engage with mobile audiences.
Investments are being made on platform innovations including mobile apps, mobile web build-outs and integration with marketing automation solutions. The rapidly developing market for mCommerce solutions is enabling brands to have their pick of tools to address every step of the selling process from advertising to transaction authentication. CTOs considering investing in mobile to meet the mCommerce wave should do so with the two key goals in mind: customer experience and unifying the purchase process.
Customer Experience
A good quality mobile experience can make a world of difference to your bottom line. Customer experience relates to any aspect of the mobile experience that can produce a positive (or negative) reaction from the customer. This includes, but is not limited to, visual appeal, search and navigation and load times. Streamlining the mobile experience is extremely important because it ensures the customer’s time is spent positively and efficiently engaging with the brand.
Unified Purchase Process
The first step toward ensuring consistency in a multi-device, multi-channel world is by enabling the purchase process through mobile. Whether a customer is researching product information, ordering online or even engaging at a brick-and-mortar establishment, mobile has the potential to be a consistent touch point to keep the customer fully engaged with the brand. Therefore, brands need to ensure that the key element in having an online store – the transactional process – is consistent, familiar and efficient across all devices.
It’s important to keep in mind that for consumers today, it’s about instant gratification. Brands need to be able to provide them what they want, when they want it and ensure that it is as easy as possible for them.
