Many analysts predict that mobile commerce will soon overtake traditional ecommerce as the number of smartphone and tablet (e.g., iPad) sales continue to rise. Is your small business prepared for the mobile onslaught?
Mobile Commerce by the Numbers
In 2010, comScore estimated that, out of more than 234 million mobile device subscribers, more than 45.5 million Americans owned a smartphone. That number has since grown to 65.8 million people as of January 2011. More significantly, those smartphone owners are using their mobile devices to shop, some 48 percent of them, according to a recent comScore mobile commerce survey. And that’s not including the estimated 3 million-plus people who browse and shop online using an iPad or Android-based tablet.
And while shopping is clearly an important aspect of mobile commerce, consumers are also using smartphones and other mobile devices for many other commerce-related activities as well. These include finding nearby stores, comparing prices, researching products, using social networking sites to view and share their recommendations and scheduling appointments.
While many businesses have created mobile versions of their websites and/or optimized their existing sites for being viewed on a mobile Web browser, small and medium-sized businesses lag behind. According to the SMB Group’s 2010 Small and Medium Business Mobile Solutions Study, only about 12 percent of small businesses (1-99 employees) and 21 percent of medium businesses (100-499 employees) have mobile websites (versus 44 percent for companies with more than 500 employees).
That said, more than 50 percent of the small businesses SMB Group surveyed in the retail, education and non-governmental organization (NGO) verticals said they planned on creating a mobile website in the next 12 months. Interestingly, many of the startups surveyed by the SMB Group reported they are developing a mobile presence before creating a traditional website, because that's the area they believe will provide the most customers
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