The mCommerce Way
Susie Lonie of Vodafone UK had never thought that the little pilot project done in Nairobi will soon become a household name in Kenya. The founder of M-Pesa in Africa has paved way for mobile payments across African countries where the customers can transfer money, withdraw cash and buy airtime from their mobile phones. Popular in the 57% of Kenyan adult population, the number of domestic transactions done by M-Pesa has outstripped the money transfers Western Union does globally.
Well, this is just a small instance which unveils the power of mCommerce. Going by the numbers, there are 490 million mobile Internet users globally, with that number set to increase to 1 billion by 2011. According to the Facebook official statistics released in January 2011, there are more than 200 million active users [40 percent] currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices and people who use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active as non-mobile users!
Though mobile commerce is one amongst many commerce channels in multi channel commerce, it has the potential to rule the roost as mobile phones have become more important than a wallet, carried everywhere from the dining table to bag's pocket to the folds of sleeping pillow. A recent research published by ATG (Art Technology Group) shows 33% of consumers across the world are using their mobile devices to browse or research products and services at least periodically, 13 % are using them to make purchases. Usually, mobile is used during all four phases of multi channel commerce, namely Engage, Transact, Fulfill and Services.
As using a Smartphone has become second nature to consumers, it should come as no surprise that retailers are making use of all modern and contemporary P's of marketing to engage their customers at this new and valuable touch point. If one has to ponder upon, what are the most frequently mCommerce transactions - making a purchase using a mobile device; use of a mobile wallet or a digital coupon; price comparison using bar code scanning. But there is no end to innovation and retailers are doing their best to make hay while the sun of mCommerce shines. Targeted GPS based promotions, mobile virtual malls, digital signage integration with mobile location and Coupon/gift card redemption at Store PoS are some of the new techniques being used to tap the power of the technology. According to NRF, a reported 74% of online retailers either have in place or are developing mobile commerce strategies, while 20% have already implemented their complete plans. These have essentially become the need of the hour especially when customers can actually buy a Corvette on eBay mobile for $75,000. This is an eye opener which demonstrates that people are whole heartedly embracing the new technology and keeping the businesses on their toes.
And to help businesses bridge the gap, IT and business solution providers have come to the fore. Apart from providing mobile services for websites and e-commerce sites, the other areas of focus are Barcode/RFID solutions; Telematics; GPS based solutions; real time analytics and actionable alerts to store exception scenarios and robotics. iPhone apps such as Shopkick and Android have created huge buzz in the market by launching easily downloadable apps to help customers buy when they are on move. A leading pharmacy retailer in US allows the users to refill the prescriptions from account history, take the order prints and locate store just by a single touch on the app.
Another growth opportunity in mobile industry is that of mobile payments which is gradually gaining traction. Since most of the companies only limit themselves to the usage of credit/debit cards for mobile payment, Paypal and Isis see a huge opportunity in the fledgling industry. Isis, which is a joint venture between AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon wireless, intends to create a mobile wallet that will eliminate the need to carry cash, credit and debit cards, reward cards, coupons, tickets and transit passes. The time is not surely far off when the customers won't carry anything in their wallets, not even debit/credit cards, just a wave of mobile phone will do!
So, the ball has been set off rolling and market forces will drive it. Let's see how much momentum it gathers!
Comments
It is indeed true that in the recent past, there has been no boom bigger than the mobile boom. Indeed first there was the Internet and while it almost reached out to everyone, it is true that cell-phones today reach out to even many more consumers than the Internet reaches. I like the idea of not carrying credit cards and just waving the mobile phone to get "anything" done. That is where we are definitely headed and the day is not far when we will use cell-phones to do everything. Mobile marketing and smart cellular campagins is the way to look forward to, if any company is looking forward to making high-margin revenue effectively.
It does definitely post a question which is out for discussion - if the cell phone becomes so expensive (not in terms of its buying-cost but in terms of the value it is carrying for a person), what kind of security threats does it post if you were to ever lose it or get it stolen? Surely a whole lot of collaboration between cellular service providers, banking and third party payment gateway companies, etc will be required. All of this technologically points to one thing - having "standards" in place.
Posted by: Mayank Shridhar | April 5, 2011 1:21 PM