M-commerce takes a tenth of high street retail market

Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - 15:36 by Graham Miller

One pound out of every 10 that British consumers spend via established high street retailers, is now passed on through m-commerce services, according to a report from NetSuite.

This means that in 2011, it is estimated that about 45 billion was generated through portable devices and that by the end of 2012, this will have topped 56 billion for the year, a 23 per cent growth.

While this might be seen as potentially problematic for the future of the high street itself, the retailers are actually being buoyed by the news, with 87 per cent reporting that they expect to see some growth over the coming 12 months.

Eighty per cent of high street retailers have now taken advantage of m-commerce tools to secure increased sales, either by adopting a mobile optimised site or by creating their own dedicated smartphone applications, which can be used to carry out transactions.

About half of all mobile owners in the UK now have a smartphone and this is only set to increase over the coming year, so it seems certain that the m-commerce market will continue to increase its prominence into 2013 and beyond.

Fifty two per cent of retailers said that they believed they faced competitive problems as a result of a rival company adopting m-commerce strategies that outpaced their own, which means that this is becoming a major new battleground.

NetSuite spokesperson, Roman Burkay, said that the increasing regularity with which consumers use portable devices to make purchases via safe shopping online, was indicating to retailers that this area was one worth watching.

He said that the main barrier for wider m-commerce usage was the cost to the retailers that comes with creating competently put together mobile services, which meet the needs of consumers and ensure that safe shopping online can be carried out with as few impediments as possible.