Tag: mobile commerce trends

Sales almost doubled over the holiday shopping season in 2014, when compared to the year before.

According to E-bit, a Brazilian e-commerce consultancy, sales that were made over mobile commerce in the country, during the Christmas shopping season, almost doubled in 2014 when compared to the figures that were produced during that same span of time in 2013.

From November 15 through December 24, there was an increase of 96 percent in m-commerce purchases.

The purchases made over mobile commerce represented 8.8 percent of the total online sales that were experienced in the country. Comparatively, in 2013, smartphone and tablet based shopping made up only 4.5 percent of the total online sales, during the same period of time. When it came to revenue, m-commerce also made up 8.8 percent of the total during the holiday shopping period. This represented an increase of 82 percent over the figure generated by the firm in 2013.

A considerable part of the growth in Brazil’s mobile commerce figures were the result of Black Friday’s sales.

E-bit reported that on that one day alone, there was a growth of 609 percent over m-commerce, when compared to Black Friday in 2013. The director of the firm, Pedro Guasti, said that “The share of mobile devices in virtual shopping is already nearing 9%. New entrants – those with no Internet access, as well as those with access from computers – are now migrating to smartphones and tablets”

Among the main drivers of the use of mobile devices for shopping purposes has been their rapid and growing penetration throughout the country. As more consumers own smartphones and tablets, it has caused the amount of marketing and selling targeting consumers using those gadgets to rise considerably. This was made clear, recently, by the panel at the São Paulo based Mobile+ Forum.

Equally, the instability of the broadband connections in Brazil have the potential to frustrate possible customers and have, according to the forum’s panelists, led shoppers to abandon their shopping carts before their transactions are complete. This will clearly be an important hurdle for mobile commerce to overcome if it is to continue it staggering growth rate in the country.

Masaya Ueno, the director of Rakuten Asia has released a promising prediction for 2015 trends.

Rakuten, the massive e-commerce giant from Japan, has now released an official statement that has revealed that it has brought in $1.1 billion worth of revenue in Singapore via mobile commerce channels.

The company therefore feels that the Singapore market is a tremendously promising one for next year.

The director of Rakuten Asia, Masaya Ueno, who is also the company’s Country Manager for Singapore and the Head of the Business Development Division, explained that the country’s tremendous 80 percent adoption rate of smartphones has made it ready for a great deal more growth in mobile commerce. Smartphone shopping is already quite common in the country but the company feels that there remains a great deal more room for growth to continue throughout 2015.

The larger smartphones, nicknamed “phablets” are being called a driving force behind this mobile commerce trend.

According to Masaya Ueno, “Apple’s entry into the Phablet market with the iPhone 6 Plus and the launch of other phablets flagships like the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 will help to drive the adoption of mobile shopping is Singapore as well.”

At the same time, Rakuten’s forecast also explained that the focus on ‘mobile-first’ is also spreading throughout the Asian Pacific region, where many consumers use their smartphones as their exclusive method of accessing the internet. The prediction underscored the fact that this will be an important m-commerce factor in 2015, as it shows that the trend in mobile shopping will not be exclusive to Singapore, but will also have considerable potential in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

Rakuten explained that this mobile technology trend should be telling retailers that they simply cannot think that they can continue to ignore this fast moving segment of m-commerce, as consumers throughout that region turn away from their desktops in favor of their smaller screen handsets.

The Rakuten prediction is that far more retailers will rapidly begin an investment into mobile commerce in both the marketing and retail efforts, and that this will be easily seen in all of 2015.