Get Out Your Blackberry/iPhone/Treo - It’s Time to Shop

Posted on | June 10, 2008 |

Currently, there are three times as many mobile-phone subscribers (3.3 billion) as Internet users (1.3 billion) worldwide, but I bet you’re site’s not set-up to reach all those devices.

A couple of weeks after a  survey by Opera showed eBay to be one of the most visited mobile sites,  Cisco released an  E-commerce Study that shows the Mobile Phone to Be New ‘Fourth Channel’ for retail growth.  Mobile devices are quickly joining physical stores, websites and catalogs as a go-to retail channel. Any smart marketer knows….bring the shopping to the consumer don’t force the consumer to go to the shopping.   We want to reach women in line at the DMV, waiting to pick-up their kids, in the elevator, on the bus – wherever they have time to manage their lives. 

We already know e-commerce continues to swell.  Forrester Research estimates that online sales will reach $204 billion this year and $335 billion by 2012. E-commerce accounts for 6 percent of all retail sales in the United States.  If we can make the commerce more accessible and integrated into women’s found time we can close more sales.  The study found that the top 5 overall e-commerce sites,  included Amazon.com, Best Buy, Sears, Circuit City, and Macy’s.

 I’m disappointed to not see more of the life management sites in there – this to mobile functionality is a huge opportunity for drugstore sites (drugstore.com), grocery delivery services (freshdirect.com) and banks.  I usually remember that I need to buy toilet paper as I’m running out the door in the morning.  If only I could put the order in via my phone while I’m in the elevator.

 E-commerce study press release and  study results via video on the Cisco Platform blog.

  E-tailing Meets mCommerce [gigaom]

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