Mobile commerce may have begun as a sort of advancement on e-commerce, enabling the selling and purchasing of goods from anywhere, by simply using a mobile device like a smart phone or tablet. But now m-commerce is the reason for the many new industries and services that have sprung up and has helped redefine some old ones, like taxicab booking services, mobile banking, electronic bookings and tickets for events, movies and transportation, flight boarding passes, and mobile marketing, to name a few.

Given the ease of use, accessibility, and speed of this medium, it is little wonder that m-commerce will continue to skyrocket and see conversion rates boom. Already retailers are driving nearly 40% of their online transactions through mobile apps.

To remind you that as an e-commerce company you can no longer ignore m-commerce as an important channel, here are the stats, the trends and the new things in mobile retail.

• An increased level in trust: An increased number of people are comfortable shopping via their mobile devices because the general level of trust has significantly increased with the diminishing number of security issues. Moreover, the digital native consumers who have grown up with technology are less likely to fear the medium.
• Sites are being made suited for mobile: With mobile seeing the largest online footprint, e-commerce merchants are taking care to make themselves available on mobile. This means that the sites are optimised for easy mobile viewing, more people are investing in mobile apps, and many brands are gearing towards the mobile-first experience. With easier site-navigation and an experience catering to the unique browsing patterns and challenges on mobile, the results are seen in the increased mobile conversion.
• The checkout is expedited. With the growing popularity of mobile shopping, the mobile checkout experiences have gotten more convenient. With the one-page checkout, the various payment options provided and the option of digital wallets (like PayPal, Amazon Pay and Paytm), just the checkout out experience has contributed to improved mobile conversion at 10%.
• M-commerce is here to stay: Unlike other trends, m-commerce isn’t going to phase out; it is here to stay.
• Let the numbers convince you:
  • Mobile conversions have seen a 30% increase in the span of a year.
  • In the past, m-commerce sales have accounted for 31% of the total revenue. This number is only increasing with time.
  • Desktop still matters as it currently attests to a higher AOV than mobile (53%), but the mobile numbers are only going upwards!

With the smallest to the biggest in retail adopting m-commerce, if anyone had any doubts about this channel, we hope this blog shows you that m-commerce is a sales and marketing channel on its own, and that isn’t going to change!