Mobile commerce or m-commerce is growing at a tremendous pace. At 20 percent of overall online sales, mobile spending rose 28 percent during 2012, 2nd Quarter, according to IBM. Led by big gains in health and beauty and home goods, mobile continued to dominate. In comparison, in-store sales rose 4.6 percent in the second quarter, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Census Bureau report.
Holiday ecommerce revenue growth of 15% in 2013
eMarketer, a leading publication on e-commerce industry estimates that e-commerce will generate $61.8 billion in sales during November and December in 2013 or 23.5% of total US ecommerce sales. This would be an increase of 15.1% from 2012, essentially the same growth rate as last year. The season has started early with bigger discounts and retailers are giving consumers deals that were unheard of last year. Competition has fiercely increased on all industries  and brick & mortar retailers have to struggle to match selection and prices that are found online. Amazon, Walmart, Target and Best Buy have started same day pickup or delivery in certain areas.
eMarketer projects holiday sales to come in with a growth rate of 15.1% vs. full year e-commerce growth at 16.2% which is a slight downward trend of e-commerce holiday sales. Some retailers get 40% of their sales during this period which makes it critical to have a responsive site with high conversion and an optimized user interface & user experience (UI/UX).
Year of the Mobile Shopper – Mobile commerce projected growth of 68% in 2013
A lot of major e-commerce sites have started the push to improve their mobile websites with apps and an optimized mobile user interface & user experience (UI/UX) but some retailers are still behind the curve. eMarketer projects mobile commerce or m-commerce to generate $42 billion of the total $262 billion of e-commerce sales for the year . Â This is a tremendous growth of 68.2% from 2012 and accounts for 16% of total ecommerce sales. Most of the mobile devices including Apple iphones, Android smartphones (Samsung Galaxy, Google Nexus 5), Ipads and tablets have improved in resolution and 4G networks are making the user empowered to do almost anything that a pc user can do. Qualcomm Snapdragon processors are as fast as some desktop or laptops.
By 2017 m-commerce sales are expected to exceed $100 billion and reach over $113 billion which would be a CAGR of 28%,
Several factors that have aided in such phenomenon the rapid spread of smart phone and tablets. Stores and vendors stepping up in providing fast and easy to use apps for sales and services.
Some very interesting data regarding m-commerce trends is compiled in the following info-graphic:
Deepak Wadhwani has over 20 years experience in software/wireless technologies. He has worked with Fortune 500 companies including Intuit, ESRI, Qualcomm, Sprint, Verizon, Vodafone, Nortel, Microsoft and Oracle in over 60 countries. Deepak has worked on Internet marketing projects in San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange Country, Denver, Nashville, Kansas City, New York, San Francisco and Huntsville. Deepak has been a founder of technology Startups for one of the first Cityguides, yellow pages online and web based enterprise solutions. He is an internet marketing and technology expert & co-founder for a San Diego Internet marketing company.
