As one of the most important tools in online marketing today, mobile commerce is a huge weapon. It’s one of our most effective and powerful forms of marketing and is perfect for both impulsive buyers and studious shoppers. However, it’s important to remember that mobile commerce is still, for the most part, in its infancy. It’s a subject which is growing all the time and looks set to continue to grow, expand and develop further. What does the future of mobile commerce look like outside of 2021, though? What’s to come next?
More mobile users than desktop users
In many ways, we have already managed to see this take place. At present, over half of the world has access to the internet – 55%, or 3.2 billion. However, did you know that a whopping 2 billion of these people are spending time on a mobile device instead?
It’s become a major part of digital commerce. It’s one of the most important ways that we can connect with others. When you speak with someone online today, it’s more likely than not that they are using a smartphone or tablet. The days of everyone being stuck sitting in front of a PC screen are dying out. This is likely to continue far beyond 2021, to the point where PCs will, eventually, become phased out.
That might be some way away, but it is by no means something for decades in the future.
More mobile banking, more mobile payments
2021 has already seen an increase in the number of people who are using mobile banking and mobile payments. More people using the internet on their mobile devices means that this feels like a natural thing to do. More importantly, it shows a huge transformation in the way that we deal with our day-to-day affairs.
In the past, sending money to someone via a digital platform was done in emergencies. Today, you are more likely to send a friend or family member money over a mobile device than you are to give them cash in person. This has become a common part of the industry and plays a major role in the way that we go about handling our banking and money. We can expect this to continue to grow, as well, as people become more accustomed to moving money around in this way.
People are spending more time online via mobile devices
If you were to go back to the introduction of smartphones on a regular basis, you’d find most people seen them as a ‘fad’. Most wrote off the importance of using the internet on a smart device, claiming they would rather work on a full screen. That, though, is not the case whatsoever. In fact, today you will find that people, on average, spend 87 hours per month online with a smartphone.
While it might shock those who had no intention of using a smartphone, this is over double what people spend on a desktop computer. In fact, people tend to spend as much as 34-hours per month on a desktop computer. This shows that, even at double, people would be spending around 68-hours per month on a desktop: still a lot less than you would on a mobile device, anyway!
More mobile sales are coming
By 2021, we can expect to see a transformation in the way that we do all of our business. At the moment, if you go shopping, you likely do some of it offline, and some of it online. Many of us, though, like to shop on the full screen of our PCs or laptops. However, according to research from Signal-boosters.co.uk, by 2021, it’s expected that over half of e-commerce sales will come from mobile devices. This is estimated to reach as high as 54% of the total sales: that is quite the step forward in size and in scale.
It’s also one of the reasons why, for the most part, many people are on their mobile devices more than ever. The ease of shopping online is changing all the time, with websites becoming increasingly more mobile friendly. With that in mind, it’s easy to see where that increase is going to come from.
Mobile influencing
Another important change thanks to the growth of the mobile industry is the fact that it now helps us make so many decisions. Studies show that we often make around one-third of all shopping decisions through what we find online. If you were to search around online, then you would quickly find a lot of information about how good the product you are intending to buy really is.
This is quite an important distinction and is going to change a lot of how we shop. If you are someone who likes to find the best price or read reviews, you’ll be doing it more in the future. The ease of which we can access information on our mobile devices, even from the shop floor, means we’ll be making more and more informed choices through the feedback that we can find as we read our phone screens.
Indeed, it’s actually now known that just 1 in 5 of us don’t look at our phones when we are in a store. That’s right: 80% of buyers will look to use their mobile phone to help look at product reviews. If you are comparing prices and you are looking to find the best alternative due to stock or size issues, you won’t ask in-store. People instead prefer to turn to the independence of the internet to look around that way: it’s a hugely powerful way to help you look around and find even more valuable detail.
With that in mind, then, you can surely see that the future of mobile commerce is going to be more, more and more. As we become more accustomed to using our smart devices on a regular basis, we’ll use it for even more decisions in our day-to-day life. When it comes to shopping, then, expect this trend to continue in a big way.
