….And Yet, M-Commerce — and M-Everything — Is Still On the Rise!
The Surge of Mobile-Device Enabled Shopping
The headline is a direct follow up to last week’s blog post, which concerned one merchant’s unfortunate overreaction to “showrooming,” that mobile-device enabled method of seeing a product “live” in a store, then turning to a handy screen to see if you can get it for a better price.
The Federal Reserve’s Findings on Mobile Banking Usage
This week, financial news roundups are abuzz with a recent report by the Federal Reserve that nearly a third of all mobile phone users had used mobile banking in the 12-month period leading up to last November, when the Fed compiled its data (which means the trends have been growing in the half-year since).
Smartphone Users Lead the Charge in Wireless Banking Services
Further, nearly half of all smartphone users — and remember, not all mobile phones are smartphones yet — did likewise, mostly using wireless banking services to review account balances, check transactions, and transfer funds between accounts. Mobile check depositing experienced a big uptick between surveys, though, with 21 percent of all mobile phone users mentioning they’d use these services.
Point-of-Sale Payments via Mobile Phones
More germane to our coverage here, though, the use of mobile phones to make point-of-sale payments went up threefold over that same year, though that still leaves the number at a small but growing 6 percent of all smartphone owners having used those devices to complete a purchase.
Keeping Up with the Upward Trends in Mobile Commerce
And again, the trends have only gone upward in the half-year since. So as we frequently remind you here, make sure you’re ahead of those curves — whether they’re being reported by the Fed or not — and anticipating where your customers will be, and what they’ll want, from electronic checks, to on-the-spot processing, to E-Commerce and more.
Adapting to Consumer Behavior in the Digital Marketplace
And then it’s okay if they showroom — cause you’ll be able to meet them wherever they decide to “check out and buy.”
