Analysts are predicting that revenues will climb throughout the holiday shopping season.
As online shopping activities get into full gear throughout the United Kingdom in preparation for holiday gift buying, many companies are now placing a significant focus on their m-commerce efforts to try to pull in an even greater amount of money from shoppers with smartphones and tablets.
This festive season is expected to be a very important one for mobile, and it’s already off to a hot start.
Research and predictions abound, as analysts throughout the industry attempt to forecast the behaviors of merchants and consumers, alike, in a channel that is still in its emerging phase. For example, the results of a recent study from Deloitte has indicated that up to £3.5 billion in sales that are made at brick and mortar shops will have been influenced directly by a mobile device.
This translates to an m-commerce influence over approximately 10 percent of retail holiday sales.
The influence of m-commerce over holiday shopping sales that will occur before Christmas 2012 has a broader role, as the behaviors of smartphone and tablet owning consumers are more closely examined. The research also suggested that an additional £3.2 billion in sales will have had an indirect influence from the use of those devices.
This means that the devices aren’t just being used for making purchases online. Smartphone and tablet users will also use information from m-commerce websites to help them to make their decisions for making purchases from physical retail stores.
Earlier in November, there was another study released – this one form IMRG – which showed that more than £900 million in sales would have been made directly over a mobile device during the Christmas holiday shopping season. However, it has now been made evident that m-commerce has a great deal more influence over sales than the actual buying that goes on over the small screen.
Of the total mobile sales that are expected, approximately £500 million will have been generated specifically from tablets. This suggests that those particular mobile devices are playing a highly important role in buying over m-commerce. This also indicates that these same devices will have a notable influence over the shopping that goes on in retail stores, even if the purchase is not made online.
