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M-commerce success for Debenhams enables expansion

Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - 10:06 by Sarah Collinson

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Debenhams is one of the many mainstream retailers benefitting from m-commerce and it has announced that it is expanding the reach of its mobile services to encompass more smartphone platforms.

Debenhams launched its iPhone m-commerce app in October 2010, allowing customers to experience safe shopping online from the convenient platform of their mobile phone.

Just five months later and the iPhone app has already generated £1 million in revenue from the UK alone, with 360,000 iPhone owners downloading it from the App Store since its launch.

A third of the app users have bought products using it on more than five occasions and Debenhams has seen an 84 percent increase in e-commerce sales since last autumn.

Debenhams has announced plans to make its m-commerce app available on Google's Android platform and Nokia's Symbian operating system, expanding the reach of its portal for safe shopping online even further and tapping into the growing number of people who are happy to buy products on their mobile phones.

Debenhams spokesperson, Harriet Williams, said that millions more UK consumers would be able to enjoy the retailer's m-commerce features, thanks to the arrival of new apps for Android and Symbian.

The app will be free to download and use via the app markets on each of the new platforms. App developer NN4M took charge of building these new programs and CTO, Jonathan Heap, said that it was only thanks to the uptake of the iPhone app, that consumers could appreciate the added convenience of using m-commerce when compared with traditional e-commerce sites or high street shopping.

Debenhams is not quite at the top of the m-commerce market in terms of sales, as retailer ASOS netted a million pounds in a single month at the end of 2010, according to New Media Age.