M-Commerce- Is Your Business In On The Action?

Katherine Bennett - October 20, 2011

Recently, I watched a commercial where a waiter brought the bill to an individual who was eating dinner with several people.  The individual told everyone how much they owed and. immediately, everyone at the table, except for one, whipped out their cell phones and began to transfer money to this person’s bank account to cover their portion of the bill. It just goes to show that mobile devices are here to stay, at least for now. As technology advances, businesses have to adopt to new ways to reach people and one of these ways is through m-commerce.

M-commerce also known as mobile commerce, according to eHow “is the buying and selling of goods and services through the use of hand-held devices such as mobile phones or PDAs.  This form of buying is known as next generation e-commerce and it’s conducted by allowing users to access the Internet without a computer connection, “ For right now, m-commerce in most circles also includes tablet and iPad shoppers. The beauty of m-commerce is that a person is capable of shopping online just about anywhere.

Many businesses are missing the boat by not having a mobile friendly website.  A mobile friendly website not only reaches cell phone users, but it can also reach tablet users. An article by e-marketer states,  “According to Ipsos, tablet owners shop via mobile devices on a more frequent basis and spend more than smartphone owners.” Keeping this in mind. Businesses who don’t have mobile friendly sites are missing out on some of the action. In fact, the article went on to say that dual owners, “those who own both tablet and smartpone devices,” spend more than those who only own smartphones.  Businesses with ecommerce sites can truly benefit by creating a mobile version of their site .Think about how many more sales could be received by businesses who sell things online if they created a mobile friendly website? 

There are new tablets and smartphones on the market just about every day and eventually desktop computers may become obsolete. In order to stay current and get in on mobile commerce, businesses have to be willing to quickly adapt to technology changes.