With the advent of internet and technology, a new buzz word took the world by storm. "E-Commerce". This is the term used to consolidate all the transactions that happen over the internet. By now, most of us would be familiar with the buzz word. But there's another one that's catching up with its predecessor.
The new mantra of companies is "M-Commerce"(or Mobile Commerce). Many of us misinterpret this as the transactions that happens through the smartphones or tablets (or mobile phones). Though this is a partly right answer, this is not what the person who coined this term had in mind while doing so. The term was coined in 1997 by Kevin Duffey and he goes on to state, "M-Commerce is the delivery of electronic commerce capabilities directly into the consumer’s hand, anywhere, via wireless technology." This also means bringing the service to the customer's doorstep.
M-Commerce in the implementations phase has been making the rounds for around 5 years but the potential that it contains is enormous. In January 2013, 29% of mobile users have now made a purchase with their phones according to sources from BI Intelligence. Bank of America, one of the leading banks in the world has quoted that the purchases using mobile devices will grow to $67 billion by European and US customers in 2015. The retailing giant of the world, Walmart prides itself in being one of the top visited sites through mobile devices though their main business model is a brick and mortar setup. A staggering 40% of their customers who purchased online had used mobile devices to do so. These statistics are proof to believe that the way to be 'mobile' is by going the "mobile" way.
There are a lot of activities that have gone mobile with the advancement of technology and the internet. A few of them are:
Mobile Purchasing
The concept of any type of purchase with the use of mobile devices is called Mobile Purchasing. This has been an increase in the purchase traffic usig mobile devices and this is expected to grow more than the rate of purchase in conventional stores.
Mobile Ticketing
This is the process where tickets for various activities like traveling, movies and many more events are booked using mobile devices. This trend has grown over the years and the revenue generated through this channel have grown tremendously. There is a lot of development in this field of mobile based payment and mobile wallets that most telecom companies are working on.
Mobile Browsing
The use of mobile devices to view web content is called Mobile Browsing. The increase in the number of smartphone users have increased mobile traffic in website to numbers never seen before. This is also expected to be on the rise.
Mobile Banking
Mobile Banking is the trend that seems to have caught up with many people. The initiative of banks to get their service on to the web have increased the number of people using their online banking portals. The banks provide almost all their services available online and the same has been translated into mobile applications that run on smartphones. This has made the lives of customers simpler. They no longer need to stand in long painstaking queues to get their services. It is all available in their pockets.
Mobile Auctions
Auctioning sites have gone mobile through the launch of their respective mobile applications and their websites adapted to mobile devices. This has increased the interest in customers to go in for auctions since they can now access it at the comfort of their homes and the need to physically be present is eliminated.
The range of services encompassed in the foray of mobile commerce is vast and is growing on a day-to-day basis.
For now, M-Commerce looks strong and promising and only time will tell what the future holds for us.
And as the year rolls by, let's look at the new products and gadgets that come in to the market.
Reviews about new gadgets would be updated on a regular basis. Stay tuned for more!
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