Is mobile commerce different to ecommerce?

Mobile commerce is a natural progression of ecommerce.

On some levels they are nearly identical, but there are also important differences between the two.

Mobile ecommerce sales account for 34.5% of total ecommerce sales in 2018, and that number is growing.  By 2022, mobile ecommerce sales are expected to account for 54% if e-commerce sales.

By now your online store  should already be accessible on mobile devices, but that doesn’t automatically mean your business is ready for mobile commerce.

More importantly, our use of mobile is influencing our buying decisions even when we are in a physical brick-and-mortar store.  One-third of our decision to purchase is influenced by looking up additional information on a product via our mobile device.

What is mobile commerce?

Mobile commerce, also called m-commerce or mcommerce, includes any monetary transaction completed using a mobile device.

It is an advancement of ecommerce, enabling people to buy and sell goods or services from almost anywhere, simply using a mobile phone or tablet device.

What entails mobile commerce exactly.  It can cover a wide variety of transactions.

1. Mobile shopping.

Mostly similar to ecommerce, but accessible via a mobile device. Mobile shopping is now possible through mobile optimized websites, dedicated apps, and even social media platforms.

2. Mobile banking.

Similar to online banking, but mobile banking usually involves a dedicated app, though some banks have started experimenting with the use of chatbots and messaging apps.

3. Mobile payments.

There are so many diverse mobile payment options that we have chosen to cover them in detail further in this article.

As a business owner,  your exposure and interest in mobile commerce would mostly relate to shopping and payments, which is what the rest of this article will focus on.

Let’s start with the good points on mobile commerce, first.

Benefits of Mobile Commerce

1. Better overall experience for customers.

As long as they have a mobile device, they can shop whenever they want, wherever they are.

New mobile commerce applications that enhance the customer experience even further include:

• Augmented reality, with Ikea and Sephora among top retailers using augmented reality apps to complement their mobile commerce business

• Chatbots and messenger apps which making it easier for businesses to interact with their customers using apps and services their customers already use and love.

2. Phenomenal growth potential

eMarketer expects global ecommerce sales to reach $4.058 trillion by 2020, representing 15% of total retail sales. The percentage of that belonging to m-commerce will also continue to grow, as more online retailers see more than 50% of traffic coming from mobile devices.

3. A true omni-channel experience.

An omni-channel experience is when stores sell both online and offline — likely also selling through multiple online channels.

Omni-channel is about being where your customers are, and making it possible for them to buy what they want.

And mobile commerce makes this easier than any other form of multi-channel marketing and selling.

Why does mobile commerce matter?

Mobile ecommerce sales account for 34.5% of total ecommerce sales in 2018,, and that number is growing.

By 2022, mobile ecommerce sales are expected to account for 54% of total ecommerce sales.

By now your online store – should already be accessible on mobile devices, but that doesn’t automatically mean your business is ready for mobile commerce.

Per DynamicYield, “Only 12% of consumers find shopping on the mobile web convenient“. That’s a lot of room for improvement.

More importantly, our use of mobile is influencing our buying decisions even when we are in a physical brick-and-mortar store.

One-third of our decision to purchase is influenced by looking up additional information on a product via our mobile device.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s get a bit of background.

What is mobile commerce?

Mobile commerce, also called m-commerce or mcommerce, includes any monetary transaction completed using a mobile device.

It is an advancement of ecommerce, enabling people to buy and sell goods or services from almost anywhere, simply using a mobile phone or tablet device.

But mobile commerce is more than just a simple evolution of ecommerce.

It has also served as a trigger for new industries and services, or helped existing ones grow, including:

• Mobile money transfers.

• Contactless payments and in-app payments.

• Location-based services.

• Mobile marketing, coupons, and loyalty cards.

Common Pitfalls of Mobile Commerce

.1) Constant need for optimization.

This isn’t so much of a pitfall as it is a need to change your way of thinking when it comes to developing and managing your online store.

As we will discuss later, the speed at which the pages of your website load play a critical role in conversions and repeat business.

You will need to be aware of advancements in technology, and changes in optimization best practices to ensure your website – at least on mobile – offers a superior experience that is fast and simple to use.

 

2. Variety of payment options.

The diversity of payment options is both a benefit and pitfall when it comes to mobile commerce.

Many mobile wallets are not available in all geographical locations, while consumers in some locations prefer one payment option over another.

In Holland, for instance, 70-80% of people use iDeal, which is a payment system not really used anywhere else. If you don’t have iDeal in Holland, the Dutch won’t buy from you.

All countries have their nuances like that, which is why it was so important we used Adyen with BigCommerce. Adyen supports a large volume of sales, and allows customers to choose their preferred payment method without cluttering up the checkout flow with a bunch of different payment options.

You can even use IP addresses to automatically fill in a country’s preferred payment as someone checks out, so you don’t disrupt the checkout flow for the end user.

– Rogier van Genugten, CEO at Vinyl Express

And offering more choices for payment isn’t always a good thing.

A regularly cited study from 2000 found that a higher number of choices often leads to a decrease in sales and customer satisfaction.

It will be difficult to get the right mix of payment options when your online store first launches, but in time you will gather reams of data about your customers that will allow you to adjust them to what your customers use and want.

One-click solutions will always be preferable because they make checkout less cumbersome, but don’t ignore some payment options because they only work in certain locations.

3. Need to know and comply with a wider range of regulations.

This is a pitfall for both traditional ecommerce and mobile commerce: knowing and complying with a large number of tax laws and other regulations for all the countries you ship to.

Some online stores avoid this by only selling and shipping to residents of one country, or only a small handful of countries.

But this severely limits the size of your market, which is meant to be a benefit of ecommerce.

 

The Impact of Page Speed on Mobile Commerce

Page speed has always been an important consideration for websites, and it is even more important when it comes to mobile commerce.

Google has been encouraging developers to optimize for mobile page speed ever since they noticed that more than 50% of search queries were happening on mobile devices.

Page speed has long been a ranking factor, but Google has always only considered the speed of desktop versions of websites.

Google started using a mobile-first index which launched in July 2018.

That means website or storefronts that are mobile optimized will organically get preference in the ranking algorithm.

Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) enabled so their sites and product catalogs load faster on a mobile device.

AMP allows our merchants to create cached, fast-loading versions of pages on their storefronts.

There is also a content component to this.

On the web, on a desktop, a big screen monitor, we want to WOW our consumers with high-resolution images and dynamic, compelling content.

But we don’t want to sacrifice the speed and experience if that consumer is on a 3G network and on a small mobile screen.

But it’s not just B2C businesses.

Mobile optimization is becoming equally important to B2B and D2C business models.

According to the recent research from Google and BCG, they indicate the importance of a seamless mobile experience for B2B customers:

Mobile influences over 40% of revenue for leading B2B organizations.

Half of the search queries are made on smartphones.

And that number will grow to 70% by 2020.

So we should not think of mobile optimization for B2C only because it applies to all business models.

5 Steps Brands Can Take to improve Mobile Experience for their Customers

1. Run some tests.

It is important to remember that users with a high-end smartphone on a WiFi connection will have a far superior experience than someone with a mid-tier smartphone with a 3G connection.

To account for this, we suggest running separate speed tests using several different tools:

• Test My Site – a Google tool for testing mobile page speed. The test is run over a simulated 3G connection, and the results show how long the page takes to load, and how many visitors you can expect to lose with that loading time. You can enter your details to receive a slightly more detailed report via email.

• PageSpeed Insights – another Google tool, but here you can expect a grading (and improvement suggestions) for both mobile and desktop speed. Here the performance of your website is compared to that of pages monitored by the Chrome User Experience (CrUX) report, and rated as fast, average, or slow. Your page is also assessed to see if it follows any common performance best practices, and you are then given suggestions on how to improve performance.

• WebPageTest – using this tool you are able to specify what browser, device, and connection type the test should be run on, giving you a better idea of how your website performs for the average user. The results are more detailed, and while you aren’t given any suggestions, you will be able to better identify the root cause of any performance issues.

• Pingdom – the reports returned after a test using Pingdom are easier to understand than those of WebPageTest, but the free test doesn’t include an option for mobile only.

It’s important to remember that all of the tools mentioned here are only ever testing the page speed for a single URL, not your entire site.

Depending on how your site has been designed, many suggested optimisations could be applied to your entire website, though you may still want to test several different pages to look for any isolated issues.

The following points will discuss how you can implement suggested optimisations to improve the mobile page speed of your site.

2. Optimize & reduce images.

Images are one of the biggest contributing factors to poor page speed for two reasons:

1. They aren’t always optimized, and

2. There are often too many on one page

Ecommerce sites undoubtedly benefit from the use of high quality images, but modern image optimization makes it possible to reduce the file size of images without affecting the digital quality.

But image optimization isn’t just about reducing the file size, it’s also about resizing images for different devices.

Unfortunately, ecommerce sites are also at risk of poor mobile page speed as a result of too many images on a single page.

Because customers can’t pick up – or try on – products in an ecommerce store, it’s only natural to compensate for this by including multiple images of the same item from different angles.

But the old adage of “less is more” still applies here.

If you plan your product photos properly, it is possible to get by with two to four images, instead of six or more.

In many instances, all you need is a shot of the front, the back, and maybe one or two close-ups that show specific features.

Given how much influence images have on page speed, optimizing your images – and even reducing the number of images on each page – will almost always result in a noticeable improvement in load time.

3. Minimize code.

Minifying HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code involves stripping the relevant files of all spaces and line breaks.

Doing this doesn’t reduce the file size as dramatically as with image optimization, but every millisecond improvement in page speed counts.

Google recommends several tools which will minify your code for you, though most ecommerce platforms also minify these files automatically.

More built-in functionality means less apps –– and less apps means less code –– and less code means a faster site.

But that’s only part of the reason why BigCommerce merchants sell 34% more than those on Shopify.

4. Reduce tracking snippets.

The use of 3rd-party tracking and analytical services is a necessary evil when it comes to ecommerce.

But if you’re not using the Google Tag Manager, the snippets of code required by each service can affect page speed.

With Tag Manager you are still able to use all your preferred tracking and analytical services, but you only need to add one snippet of code to each page.

5. Do a feature audit.

Featuritus is a term originally used to describe the unnecessary addition of features to software.

And it’s a term that – along with Bright Shiny Object (BSO) syndrome – is also relevant to web sites.

Each feature and software integration you add to your site requires additional resources, which impact on page speed.

A feature audit means honestly judging the value of each feature and app you’ve integrated into your site.

The tests you ran through Pingdom and WebPageTest would show the impact of any scripts, images, and other resources needed for some features and apps.

Now ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you and your customers benefit from all of them?

• Is the benefit gained more valuable than that of a better page speed on mobile?

• Would removing any of them negatively affect sales and conversions?

• If so, is there a way to keep the feature or app, but reduce the impact on page speed?

Depending on your site structure, not all of the optimization suggestions made by Google – or discussed here – will be possible.

And while those that are typically lead to speed improvements measured in milliseconds, each millisecond adds up.

No matter what, faster is better and less is more.

Remember also that there is a lot to gain from taking a mobile-first approach to developing and optimizing your website.

Look, you don’t need an article to tell you that mobile commerce is important.

You probably shop on your phone – or browse there at the very least.

That said, numbers never hurt, especially if you are needing to convince others in your organization about the benefits of a mobile-first m-commerce strategy.

So, let’s look at the numbers.

Revenue impact for the retail industry.

• Mobile conversion increased 30% YoY from 2015 to 2016.

• In 2012, mobile sales accounted for 10% of total purchases across BC stores

• In 2016, mobile commerce sales accounted for 31% of total purchases

Same store mobile commerce growth stats by country YoY.

• U.S. businesses – 24% growth.

• Australia & New Zealand businesses – 33% growth.

• European businesses – 18%.

• Canadian businesses – 19%.

• Asia-based businesses – 42%.

• Other – 30%.

Mobile device differences.

• iOS users spend 18% more on average than Android users.

• Desktop average order value (AOV) is 53% higher than mobile AOV (iOS + Android).

As you can see, things are in flux in t  erms of mobile commerce, and it will be a while before things fully settle.  However, this is definitely an opportunity for ecommerce merchants, as being progressive, allows you to set your site, and ultimately business apart for its user experience, and encourage the convenience of repeat business.