The retail industry is itching to sell products on mobile phones; it’s just waiting for consumers to start buying. Already, 25 of the 30 top online retailers have iPhone apps, even though less than 15 percent of online consumers report having used their mobile phones to buy something.
But Forrester Research predicts that a boom will come. Mobile commerce is expected to reach $31 billion by 2016, up from $3 billion in 2010, according to a forecast the firm published Friday. But even with such rapid growth, mobile shopping is expected to make up only about 7 percent of e-commerce by 2016. That amounts to about 1 percent of total retail sales.
Several things are holding people back from using their phones to shop, according to Forrester. At the top on the list are concerns about security. These concerns may fade in the same way that they stopped being a barrier to online shopping. But there are also technical barriers — mobile sites are often slow and unwieldy – and confusion among retailers about how best to pursue their mobile strategies.
Over 90 percent of online retailers have mobile strategies, according to a recent survey conducted by Shop.org for Forrester, but the report characterizes the vision of many retailers as “immature.” For now, companies are using mobile primarily to offer information about the products they sell or to give basic information about their stores. But there are more ambitious plans in the works.
Among those most often cited by retailers are enabling customers to use their phones to pay at check out, share ratings and reviews, and receive notices about sales and other offers.
Putting the focus on consumers may be misguided, said Sucharita Mulpuru, the author of the report. Rather than hope that shoppers will use their phones to buy things, she said retailers should focus on training store employees to use mobile devices in ways that would make them more helpful. Several retailers, like Home Depot and Urban Outfitters, have already indicated that they will do so, but they are a relatively small minority, the report says.
“While the opportunity to arm store associates with instantaneous information and richer payment acceptance capabilities may be the most compelling reason for retailers to invest in mobile, most companies view mobile as a channel that is primarily about completing sales through a mobile site,” Ms. Mulpuru writes.
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=1fc84017edd23a35c839d6f22f0fa12a
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