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

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The proliferation of smartphones has brought about a new trend in consumer buying behavior called mobile commerce. According to 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. 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.

1. Target Millennials

Millennials and their smartphones are rarely separated, this is supported by the data collected that reported that 28% of Millennials in the US prefer to shop on their smartphones. According to the survey results millennials are invested in 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.

2. Don’t Waste Any Time

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. There is room for growth within mobile commerce for businesses 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.

3. Focus on Social Advertising

Millennials and social media are inseparable. 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. To keep up to date with current events in the world Millennials prefer to use social media. The data collected showed that 68% of millennials choose to 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 therefore, targeting young adults through social media marketing should be an integral part of every great mobile commerce strategy.

4.Know Your Target Audience

In order to come up with a unique and effective strategy to implement mobile commerce, there must first be a complete understanding of the needs and preferences of the target audience. For example business owners looking to target millennial consumers 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.

5.Encourage Sharing

1 out 4 millennials reported suffering from the ‘fear of missing out’. This is where millennials develop anxiety that someone is having a great time without them. This phenomenon is particularly common among 18 to 22-year-olds who suffer from the fear of missing out marginally more than other millennials. For millennials sharing is one of the most popular features on social media platforms. 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.For business owners who wish to develop an innovative approach to m-commerce they should encourage their millennial customers to share online content.

6.Include Health Information

Millennials are often accused of being overly confident about their lifestyle choices and irresponsible in regard to their health.  This does not mean that young adults are not interested in learning about different ways to lead a healthier lifestyle. 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 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.

7.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. Approximately half of the surveyed millennials reported that they  feel 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. The popularity of mobile wallets is slowly increasing, with 12% opting to use a mobile wallet.

8.Make Use of Notifications & Alerts

Millennials are not just the largest group of smartphone owners but they are also the most obsessive 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. The assumption can be made 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.

9.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 reliant on their smartphones and even 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. For Business owners adding a location feature to their m-commerce will assist in their targeted millennial audience to find their store.

10.Use Games & Giveaways

Mobile games and free giveaways are popular with millennials. Almost 7 out of 10 millennials  say that playing games is one of their favorite thing to do on their smartphones. An easy for for business owners planning on mobile commerce expansions is to include millennial-focused games and product or service giveaways. Heinz, one of the most recognizable condiment brands recently upgraded its e-commerce strategy by including game features, QR codes and other engagement methods.

The collected data indicates that the mobile commerce trend is  not only here to stay but is going to increase steadily in popularity.It was reported that many young adults are still a little hesitant to switch from desktop to mobile shopping due to safety concerns. This means that there is room for growth for business owners looking to expand their e-commerce. The infographic below highlights the top 10 tips for successful mobile commerce strategy. The data used in the infographic is up-to-date and obtained from trusted sources to support business in implementing these tips into their m-commerce plan.

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