10 Must Do Steps to Improve Your Mobile Commerce Strategy [Infographic]

Posted on November 28, 2016   2:48 am by Kintan

Is there anything worse than being on your way to work, all set and ready to meet the day’s challenges head-on, and suddenly realizing you forgot your mobile phone at home? I don’t know about you, but I, like every typical millennial, honestly can’t imagine surviving through the day without my phone. Every time I misplace it or notice my battery’s running low, a vague sense of panic starts to set it.

I’ll leave the discussion on whether this this kind of dependency or (dare I say it) addiction to gadgets is healthy or not for another occasion. For now, let us just admit that most people keep their mobile phone close by at all times and rely on it to perform all kinds of tasks, from keeping in touch with friends and co-workers to running errands and shopping.

The smartphone boom has expectedly brought about a new trend in consumer buying behavior called mobile commerce. According to a number of recent research, the mobile commerce trend is expected to continue to grow globally in the years to come.

Business owners who have developed a viable long-term mobile commerce strategy will profit from this trend the most. Mapping out an effective strategy can be challenging if it is unclear what the target audience expects from an m-commerce service. The best way to overcome this is to talk  to the the customers directly.

Below are 10 easy-to-follow tips for devising a successful mobile commerce strategy. The tips are based on data obtained from 2016 Smartphone User Behavior Report and a survey which polled 2000 US millennials about their mobile shopping habits. This is the demographic group with the highest rate of smartphone ownership and usage. The millennials who took part in the survey were asked to answer a series of questions regarding their mobile commerce habits.

Millennials Are Your Friends!

You don’t need me to tell you, just look around and you’ll see that millennials and their smartphones are rarely separated (yes, we even take the phone to the bathroom with us!). But did you know that 28% of Millennials in the US prefer to shop on their smartphones? According to the survey results, millennials are big fans of mobile commerce and they consider the prospect of online shopping to be one of the top three advantages to being a smartphone owner.

Mobile shopping is also huge with high school students and millennials on maternity and paternity leave. Owners of online retail business should  keep in mind that women in this age group are twice as likely to spend money on clothes via their smartphone compared to men.

There’s No Time to Waste

Mobile commerce is yet to become the number one shopping method for US millennials. It was reported that 72% of US millennials currently prefer shopping on their desktop. This is great news for business owners, since this means there’s room for growth within mobile commerce industries targeting millennials.

The highest potential for mobile commerce expansion is within services like hotel booking, flight tickets and fashion stores. These were ranked as the three lowest priorities in terms of spending money via smartphones according to the 2016 Smartphone User Behavior Report.

Focus on Social Advertising

If there’s one thing us millennials  love more than our smartphones it’s social media. It was reported that approximately  82% of young adults in the US check their smartphones within an hour of getting up and 73%  go to sleep with their smartphones by their bed (guilty!). Millennials don’t only use social media to post selfies and watch funny videos.

We also like to keep up to date with current events through social media platforms. The data collected from the survey showed that 68% of millennials use Facebook as the social media network of choice for news consumption. Twitter is the second most popular source of news for this demographic group with 21% reporting use the microblogging site to find out about current events.

It has been reported that 41% of millennials check and update their social media as soon as they wake up in the morning, which means that targeting young adults through social media marketing should be an integral part of every great mobile commerce strategy.

Know Your Target Audience

In order to come up with a unique and effective strategy for implementing mobile commerce, you first need to make sure you have complete understanding of the needs and preferences of the target audience. If you’re looking to target millennial consumers, you might be interested to know that, 40% of those polled in the survey spend more on flowers when shopping via mobile than on any other product.

Millennials also use their smartphones to order a taxi and book various services. Young entrepreneurs are fond of ordering transport services like Uber via their smartphones while high school students are more likely to use their devices to order food. Young parents and full-time employees normally use their phones for online banking and bill-paying services.

Encourage Sharing

Ever seen a picture of your friend group on Facebook having fun without you? If you’re a millennial, you know this is one of the worst things about social media. In fact, 1 out 4 millennials reported suffering from the ‘fear of missing out’. This phenomenon is particularly common among 18 to 22-year-olds who suffer from the fear of missing out marginally more than other millennials.

Who said millennials are selfish? We LOVE sharing! Sharing is actually one of the most popular features on social media platforms among millennial users. The survey highlighted that 1 out of 2 millennials ranks sharing life moments with friends and family as the key advantage to owning a smartphone. If you’re a business owner trying to develop an innovative approach to m-commerce, don’t forget to encourage your millennial customers to share every chance you get!

Include Health Information

I’ve noticed that millennials are often accused in the media of being overly confident about our lifestyle choices and irresponsible with our health.  While there may be some truth to this, this doesn’t mean that young adults aren’t interested in learning about different ways to become more healthy.

Out of the millennials polled in the 2016 Smartphone User Behavior survey, 46% ranked the opportunity to find health information online as the key advantage to owning a smartphone. One good example of health-related mobile commerce done well is the app called ShopWell. This app offers nutrition facts and healthy eating tips based on the supermarket receipt scans, courtesy of a team of diet experts. Well done, ShopWell!

Make Security Your Top Priority

Online business owners who want to plan out an effective m-commerce strategy should always keep customer safety at the top of their priority. The survey results show that 25 to 30-year-olds feel the safest paying for products and services with their smartphones, while approximately half of the surveyed millennials reported feeling unsafe paying with their smartphones. This is the same for high school students.

The data collected reported that 1 out of 3 feel unsafe shopping on smartphones.  While the popularity of mobile wallets is slowly increasing, with 12% opting to use a mobile wallet, there’s still a lot that can be done to make millennials feel safer when shopping on their phones.

Use of Notifications & Alerts

Millennials are not just the largest group of smartphone owners, we are also the most obsessive social media checkers. One in every three millennial checks their phone at least twice an hour while 2 out of 10 confess that they check their devices up to 10 times an hour.

It was reported that 43% of millennials admit that they do not  go to the toilet without their smartphone (told you!). It’s safe to say that the chances of a millennial missing a notification on their phone are small to none. This is why every great mobile commerce strategy should include an app that sends regular notifications and alerts to millennial customers.

Help Your Customers Find You

Recent research of mobile shopping trends shows that millennials often use smartphones to find the location of a store. This indicates that millennials are increasingly relying on their smartphones to give them directions. Millennials in the survey ranked the location feature as one of the top 3 advantages of owning a mobile device.

College students and full-time employees are most likely to use their smartphones to find information about their location. This is why business owners shouldn’t hesitate to add a location feature to their m-commerce website. Trust me, us spatially challenged millennials will love you for it!

Use Games & Giveaways

No, we’re not too old for games. Mobile games and free giveaways are extremely popular with millennials. Almost 7 out of 10 millennials  say that playing games is one of their favorite thing to do on their smartphones.

If you’re planning on bringing you mobile commerce to the next level, don’t forget to include millennial-focused games and product or service giveaways. Take it from Heinz, if you don’t believe me: one of the most recognizable condiment brands recently upgraded its e-commerce strategy by including game features, QR codes and other engagement methods with surprisingly positive results.

The 2016 Survey on the shopping behavior of US millennials clearly shows that the mobile commerce trend is here to stay. While it’s true that many young adults are still a little hesitant to switch from desktop to mobile shopping due to safety concerns, this only means that there’s plenty of room for growth in this area.

For more ideas on how to make the most of the growing m-commerce trend, check out the infographic below. The infographic presents 10 proven tips for developing a successful mobile commerce strategy.

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