GO MOBILE OR LOSE YOUR BUSINESS!
Is that statement too much of an exaggeration? Well, that is debatable, but personally speaking, depending on 'what type' of business your run, or think of starting, it may be very true. It may even save your business to incorporate into your marketing strategies, marketing 'on' mobile devices. There are many simple yet effective and FREE ideas, that offline business can use to drive online traffic through their doors. I'll be sharing some of those in another post.
I currently run a Marketing & Design Consultancy business (offering mobile sites, Web Design, Social Media Branding, SEO) and so I try and stay up to date with some of the latest and innovative strategies to drive online traffic to offline businesses, and in my research I found some staggering statistics that I thought, "I think I need to share this"
The stats shows a rapidly growing trend that looks like an Ecommerce Tsunami that will not stop, but grow bigger and bigger, as time roles on. With the rise of App downloads, Mobile devices, faster and more robust smart phones, access to the internet and online purchases has become as easy as A,B,C.
Remember the internet when it first came out to the public? Some who owned businesses, said it would catch on, and others said it won't, and those that waited to long, lost out BIG TIME in revenue, and some even closed down unfortunately, and it would have been due to the fact that their 'customers' went somewhere else, where did they go? THE INTERNET!!!!!
Many businesses are struggling to survive, and it has nothing to do with their customer service, their product, in fact they saw a constant demand for their service, until it seemed people were going else where, and where were they going? At home!! The internet took that traffic away. The convenience of clicking a few buttons and your book is delivered, your meal is ordered, your TV is shipped, your movie is downloaded has lead to 'billions' in revenue being generated a year online alone, and a large share of that revenue is coming from purchases made on a 'mobile device', not a desktop computer. The marketplace has changed, not the peoples needs, or desires, that will always fundamentally be the same, but a local business if they really want to succeed financially, needs to learn and implement new modern marketing strategies.
A GOOD EXAMPLE
Me and my wife love having takeaway when we are to lazy to cook (",) There is a website whereby local fast food places can receive orders online through one platform, its called JUST EAT. You simply place your postcode (zip code) and choose what you fancy, indian, chinese, pizza or 'list everything'
and voila, a list of takeaways that have subscribed to their service you can order from. Now this is a fantastic innovative way of grabbing traffic online then turning that into customers for local businesses. Whoever started this site is making a nice income, as every business signed up no doubt will be paying a fee based upon some kind of subscription, of maybe 6 months or a year or monthly. Just Eat provides a service to the locals, and the local business at the same time. The need to get takeaway didn't go away, the marketplace changed, people were going online to find, then place their orders instead of picking up the phone, and Just Eat saw this, and bridged the two worlds together.
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| DOING IT THE RIGHT WAY |
INSIDE THE EXPLOSION OF MOBILE COMMERCE
The explosive growth of mobile commerce has left many brands and retailers wondering how they can take advantage of this market. As recently as late 2010, mobile commerce was only 3% of e-commerce. By the end of last year's holiday shopping season, that number had risen to 11%, according to comScore. That's approximately $18.6 billion in consumer spending - and that doesn't even include travel-related purchases, which comScore counts separately. Thanks in part to a new ecosystem of retail and shopping apps, mobile-generated retail spend could rise to 15% of retail e-commerce by the end of this year. Read more:
Here's a brief overview of the rise of the mobile shopper:
The critical mass of mobile consumers is a primary driver of this growth: The proliferation of Android and iOS devices, particularly tablets, have led to new mobile usage habits such as "lean-back" shopping and driving a huge explosion in mobile commerce. Currently, 54% of adults in the U.S. own smartphones and about 25% own tablets. In roughly three years, the number of tablets alone will overtake the number of PCs. By 2016, about 450 million tablets will be sold annually worldwide. Statistics already show that a disproportionate share of mobile traffic to e-commerce websites comes from tablets. With only a 25% penetration rate, tablets account for well over 40% of mobile traffic to e-commerce sites.
Brands are experimenting with mobile merchandising trends - such as mobile catalogs and coupons - that are proving to be very successful: Mobile coupons have helped major retailers and brands increase foot traffic into physical stores, and are a great way for them to collect data on offline purchases and close the mobile-to-offline purchase loop. Mobile coupons are also proving to be a path into mobile for large consumer packaged goods brands that have previously shunned the medium. By 2014 the number of mobile coupon users is expected to increase to 53.2 million a year. At roughly 10%, the redemption rate of mobile coupons crushes that of print coupons, which hovers around 1%.
The changing demographics of e-commerce will continue to drive business: For close to 50% of 12-17 year old smartphone owners, the smartphone is their primary internet access device. It follows that for younger consumers mobile commerce and buying via smartphones and tablets will be a habit and much less of a novelty than it is for older consumers. Mobile commerce is driving incremental e-commerce revenues that would not have happened without the availability of tablets and smartphones as new shopping mediums.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-brands-drive-explosion-mobile-commerce-2013-5#ixzz2TNaGmPmV
THANKS FOR READING MY POST, subscribe, leave comments below, share the article
Chow, Michael Dantzie
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