Now new research has shown that mobile has truly reached the “tipping point” for mobile commerce in the UK, with over 50% of traffic to retail sites coming from mobile devices.

And what’s more, over 1/3 of all online purchases are now made over mobile as well!

The study ran from May through July 2014, and was based upon information from some 40 retailers, including Addict, Airport Parking & Hotels, B&Q, Bank, Blacks, Brora, Cartridge People, Clarks, Crocus, Debenhams, Deckers, Dune, Dunelm Mill, Freeman Grattan Holdings (Freemans, Grattan, Look Again, Kaleidoscope, Curvissa, Swimear365, Witt International UK), Get The Label, Hobbs, Home & Cook, JD Sports, John Lewis, LK Bennett, M and M Direct, Marks & Spencer, Matalan, Millets, Moss Bros, New Look, Philip Kingsley, Schuh, Scott, Silentnight, Size, Sparkling Strawberry, Super GA, The Body Shop, The White Company & This is Pulp.

Overall, 52% of the traffic to retail sites came from a mobile device, either a smartphone or a tablet. Tina Spooner, chief information officer at IMRG commented “considering that as recently as 2010 mobile visits to e-retail sites accounted for less than 3 per cent of traffic, this latest milestone represents staggering growth of 2,000 per cent over the past four years.”

In addition, the study found that over 1/3 (36%) of online purchases were made over mobile. For retailers in clothing and apparel, the figure was over 40%.

With the total UK online sales reaching just over £24 billion (about US$40 billion) for the months May, June, and July, sales using smartphones and tablets was over £8 billion.

One of the most interesting findings was that about 80% of the mobile sales were using tablets, and only 20% were with smartphones, indicating that customers still value larger screens.

Mark Lewis, Online Director at John Lewis, said: “Today, over half of the traffic to johnlewis.com comes from mobile and tablet devices and we’ve also seen an increase in the conversion rate of traffic to sales… customers want to be able to shop seamlessly across all channels and mobile is now the go-to choice alongside visiting our shops.”

Gareth Jones, group retail and strategy director at Shop Direct, said: “As a device, the smartphone is the fastest growing sales channel for us, highlighting our customers’ growing confidence in transacting on their phones.”

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This interesting forecast by eMarketer may surprise you!

Not too many years ago one of the biggest discussions between brands and agencies was whether or not to include a “mobile component” to the next campaign.

Now, just a short time later, it seems as though mobile is set to become the top advertising channel in the UK, surpassing print, TV, radio, etc.

According to a new forecast by eMarketer, in 2014 mobile as spend will be just over £2 billion in the UK. This represents 13% of the total UK ad spend, trailing behind TV (25%), Print (19%), and other digital (34%).

However, over the next few years we are likely to pass several key milestones:

Within these figures, eMarketer expects more than half of all digital ad dollars will go toward search formats. Spending on display formats will amount to one-third of the UK’s digital ad market.

UK Ad Spend Share

UK Ad Spend in £ millions

Although the industry is immense, it is not at all homogenous, with differing devices, networks, services and consumer behaviors throughout the world. This detailed report from Deloitte provides an interesting look at the current state and important trends in the global mobile industry.

Some of the main topics investigated included the diversity of devices, and the growing number of devices that people own or have access to. In fact, for many countries the average is more than 5 devices, and for some developing countries it is up to 8 devices.

Another key factor is the variation of mobile device ownership and usage by age, especially for the 55+ age group. In many developed countries fully a third of the over-18 population is over 55, and by 2050, 17 developed countries are expected to have a median age above 50.

Not only is the smartphone penetration for the 18 to 34 year old segment over twice that for the 55+ segment, but also the 55+ group uses less of the features of their device. The chart below looks at the percentage of smartphone owners that have never downloaded an app, and compares the over 55 group with the overall average.

The report also shows that tablet ownership is much closer between the age groups, indicating that perhaps the larger form factor device will be the preferred mobile platform for and aging population.

The survey covers many other topics, including the evolution and key trends in the area of messaging.

But NFC can be used for many purposes other than payments.

Now Guiness, the world’s number one stout, has implemented a mobile marketing campaign which simply uses NFC to engage and reward customers in the pub.

Perhaps this is where NFC will finally be successful!


Although virtually synonymous with payments, NFC (near field communications) is actually a technology which simply allows for communication between two devices when they get near to each other. These devices can be either active (like a mobile phone or a POS terminal), or passive like a simple NFC tag.

In this campaign, Guiness, a brand of global spirits company Diageo, uses NFC to trigger a short interaction with a consumer. Here’s how it works.

First:
The bar patron must insure that NFC is enabled on their phone. For this campaign, Android and Blackberry users are targeted as NFC has not been implemented in iPhones yet.

Second:
The consumer taps the phone to the special fount to activate the NFC communication.

Third:
A small amount of information must be entered on the phone in order to qualify for the contest.

Fourth:
If you are a lucky customer and win, you enjoy a free pint of Guiness!

Guiness has already installed almost 15,000 of these special NFC-enabled founts across UK and Ireland, and plans to install another 65,000 by 2015.

Several things about this campaign strike us as clever:

Nick Britton, marketing manager for Guinness Western Europe at Diageo commented, “Guinness is committed to using innovation to develop new marketing tools that will excite consumers and drive valuable sales for our customers. The new NFC activity is a prime example of this… to keep our audience engaged whilst rewarding them with offers, vouchers, competitions and content.”

The campaign was implemented using Proxama’s TapPoint platform. Proxama managing director, Miles Quitmann said: “NFC technology in smartphones is starting to play a key role in how brands and consumers engage. Brands get very few opportunities to have meaningful one-to-one interactions with their consumers; NFC is changing this by allowing brands to interact with consumers that have proactively chosen to engage with them.”

]]> http://www.mobiadnews.com/?p=6261 Thu, 08 Aug 2013 13:48:55 +0000 http://www.mobiadnews.com/?p=6261 UK consumers who use their phones for search tend to take a longer time for research compared to US-based consumers, but their purchase intent is very high, with over half reporting they had eventually made the purchase.

This and many other interesting facets of UK mobile shopping behavior are highlighted in “Path-to-Purchase” infographic.

xAd, a leading mobile-location based advertising network, and Telmetrics, a top mobile call measurement provider commissioned Nielsen to survey over 1,500 smartphone and tablet users about the actual “path-to-purchase” for mobile users.

The UK focused reveals many interesting facts, among them:

• Forty (40) percent of U.K. mobile searchers report intending to make a purchase within the day and an additional 35 percent take up to a month before making a purchase decision.
• Smartphone users have a more immediate need than tablet users, with 22% looking to make a purchase within an hour of their search.
• Only 34 percent of mobile searchers know exactly what they are searching for, meaning the advertisers have a very good opportunity to effect the purchase decision of most consumers.
• For tablet users, 81 percent report using the device at home, compared to only 42 percent of smartphone users who conduct searches at home
• Price comparisons and reviews are both more popular in the U.K. than in the US – looking for coupons or deals is less popular in the U.K.

Check out the infographic below for more about the UK path-to-purchase. And for a more information about the global study as well as more detailed information about several verticals, check out the website www.mobilepathtopurchase.com

The latest statistics from research firm eMarketer found that ad revenues on mobile were $8.41 billion in 2012, up from the previous year’s $4.08 billion.

North America led the charge with the fastest growing market, with the United States showing a 220% year on year increase. Western Europe followed with an average of 95% growth, spearheaded by Sweden and the UK, where ad revenue increased 170% and 120% respectively. The US also leads in terms of actual dollars spent, with $3.5 billion last year alone, set to rise to an incredible $21.39 billion in 2016.

The figures show that, perhaps not surprisingly, the fastest growing markets are those that are historically more mature in terms of mobile use. Penetration of high-end smartphones (such as the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy range) already accounts for more than 50% of the mobile market in these countries.

However, several emerging markets also showed promising signs, with China’s mobile ad spending up 138% in 2012, while Indonesia and India both saw rises of 110%. All global markets are expected to see continuing double-digit increases for several years.

]]> http://www.mobiadnews.com/?p=6048 Wed, 19 Dec 2012 12:03:18 +0000 http://www.mobiadnews.com/?p=6048 Over the past several years, the Monday following Thanksgiving has been called “Cyber Monday” in the US, as this is the day that many people start their online shopping for Christmas.

With more and more consumers preferring to use mobile for online commerce, Cyber Monday also provides a good measure of the growth of m-commerce, and 2012 proved the importance of mobile.

Here are some interesting facts about this latest Cyber Monday, which occurred 26 November, 2012.

In the UK, the first Monday of December has developed as “Cyber Monday”. This year it fell on December 3, and it was the busiest online shopping day in UK history, with shopper making 112 million visits to retail sites, and increase of 32% over 2011. Mobile plays an important part in this, with eBay UK Mobile and Argos Mobile being the third and sixth fastest moving websites respectively on Cyber Monday.

Carin Van Vuuren, Marketing Chief for Usablenet, commented on the importance of mobile, especially tablets: “The rise in tablet traffic is significant for retailers, especially with iPad leading this growth, as not only is it becoming the fastest growing channel, but users have a higher basket value than smartphone shoppers, and it is a more convenient shopping experience due to a larger screen.”

A survey conducted by Thinkbroadband.com found that 72% of Brits were put off 4G by the pricing that has been announced.

For 500MB of data, the cheapest tariff starts at £36 a month, rising to £56 a month for 8GB.

Many other consumers in the survey expressed frustration at the company’s lack of an unlimited data plan. At present, around 7% of UK mobile users consume more than 8GB of data each month.

Thinkbroadband’s editor Andrew Ferguson said: “At current pricing it is very clear that most of the population would not be able to afford the service, and the usage allowances do not approach what fixed line broadband allows, where even in rural areas a 10GB usage allowance with voice line rental can be found for £27 per month.”

However, while EverythingEverwhere retain control of the market, there’s not a great deal customers can do about it – either bite the bullet and cough up the fees or hang back until prices inevitably drop in a few months’ time.

Now Velti, a leading provider of mobile marketing and advertising solutions, has released a white paper, “Mobile – The Shop in you Pocket”, that looks at some consumer attitude aspects of mobile retail, and explains how retailers can take advantage of the “trusted position” they enjoy with consumers.

1. Consumers trust retailers to communicate with them over mobile. In fact, over 50% of UK consumers would opt-in to receive smart direct mobile communications with their favorite brands.
2. The best way to engage consumers is through what Velti calls “Total Mobile Multi-Channel Marketing”. This includes SMS/MMS/email/social media/apps.

Consumer Trust

It may come as a surprise to many people, but consumers trust retailers to communicate with them over mobile, much more so than the travel sector, sports, or even financial services.

The key however is communicating with the consumers in a way that suits them, in terms of frequency, the device targeted, and timing, as shown by the graphic below.

Total Mobile Multi-Channel Marketing

Given the advanced state of today’s networks and mobile devices, there is a great opportunity for smart retailers to engage with consumers across a range of mobile channels, including SMS, MMS, email, Social Media, mobile sites, mobile apps. The reach and effectiveness of the retailer can be greatly increased by intelligently using a combination of these.

The full white paper provides a lot of additional information on this subject. It also includes a much greater level of analysis and discussion of the meaning and implications of the findings.

If you are interested in the area of mobile retail, we highly recommend this white paper as well worth reading.

Additional white papers are available from Velti on the Velti website.