New data suggests it might be time for small business owners to rethink their mobile commerce strategy.
Online shopping hit an all-time high at the end of 2015, according to the 2016 Cross-Platform Future in Focus study by comScore.
Small businesses don’t have the big bucks of big-box stores, so knowing exactly how to spend marketing and Web development budgets becomes all the more important.
Mobile Shopping’s Bad User Experience
Sixty percent of time spent shopping online is done on mobile devices, according to the study. Despite this, mobile accounts for only 16 percent of all retail dollars spent.
Why the disconnect?
“The gap between mobile shopping and spending is so large because shoppers wait to buy big-ticket items like computers and furniture on desktop,” Quartz reported.
One of the major problems is small screen size and having to switch back and forth between tabs, which makes shopping more difficult. Mobile commerce thrives when it comes to inexpensive items, such as books, video games and accessories.
The Issue of Security
Another strike against mobile commerce is that many shoppers still feel uncomfortable using their smartphones or tablets to make purchases.
“They don’t want to whip out their credit cards on the go or enter their information into mobile shopping sites. And, when connected to public Wi-Fi, it’s a security risk,” Quartz reported.
Despite this, many factors are helping mobile’s share of spending continue to accelerate: faster connections, decreasing concerns over transaction security, larger phone screen sizes, and more frictionless navigation of e-commerce mobile sites and apps. These will all help push mobile’s share of commerce from under 17 percent in 2015 to more than 20 percent in 2016, according to the comScore study.
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