U.K. smartphone owners increasingly using devices as a part of their shopping experience.
New research in Britain has shown that mobile commerce is becoming ever more popular among smartphone users in the country, as a growing number of related affordable and convenient services also become available, such as cheap shipping prices.
The survey identified the U.K. as a leader in online ordering over smartphones.
The study was conducted by Forrester research, which then released a report which identified the large population in the United Kingdom, its high online shipping penetration levels, and its retail culture over multiple channels as the primary factors that are sending mobile commerce revenues skyward. In fact, it predicted that by 2017, they will have surpassed $7.3 billion.
Mobile commerce sales have also been strong in Germany and France.
Sales over smartphones and tablets in Germany are projected to reach a value of over $4.9 billion, and those in France will likely hit over $3.75 billion.
Forrester also forecasted that mobile commerce will grow quite rapidly, but that the technology’s adoption over the broader scale will take some time to truly sink in. Smartphones will be the device of choice for 6.8 percent of all of the online purchases that are made in Europe by 2017, according to the data in the report.
It also showed that smartphone users will be playing an extremely important role in the development of mobile commerce as a whole. They are the individuals who are most likely to purchase other types of mobile devices that will allow them to perform various different types of shopping tasks, such as finding stores, performing price checks or comparisons, and purchasing products and services.
Forrester also went on to identify the various categories of products that have the greatest likelihood of impulse purchasing are movies, music, and books. These are areas that the researchers feel will be a major part of the growth of mobile commerce within the next few years.
Analyst from the firm, Martin Gill, stated in a post that the mobile commerce element of the retail industry is currently a “hot topic.”
