Every significant new technology requires a learning curve, and they’re coming at us faster than ever. Among the latest is mobile commerce.
Smartphone adoption is steamrolling along. First quarter 2011 sales jumped 85% year-over-year. According to one survey by Tealeaf, 85% of shoppers expect mobile shopping to be on a par with computer shopping, yet 84% of those that have tried mobile transactions have experienced difficulty. In addition, those surveyed indicated that problems with a mobile transaction would dissuade them from shopping from the same company through other channels.
Problems may be common among those companies offering mobile commerce, but most companies haven’t even given it a try yet. Marketers have a lot of catching up to do. To that end, the June issue of Multichannel Merchant included a particularly helpful article titled A look at m-commerce systems. It lists a roundup of service providers, “must have” and “nice to have” functionality, mobile payment vendors, and analytics packages. In two quick pages, it’s a great place to start your research and begin getting up to speed.
