Mobile commerce is now a global phenomenon, says a new report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau, with 80 percent of customers from around the world saying they are satisfied with their smartphone shopping options.

The numbers come from IAB’s newest report, Mobile Commerce: A Global Perspective, which looks at mobile commerce trends from around the world. While 80 percent is an impressive number, that last 20 percent still needs to be reached.

“Mobile is already a default companion device in our daily life,” said Anna Bager, senior vice president and general manager of mobile and video at the Interactive Advertising Bureau. “For many of us, it’s the first device we wake up to in the morning and the one sitting next to our pillow when we go to bed.

“In IAB’s global mobile commerce study, consumers have indicated they regularly use their mobile device to check prices, look for product and service reviews and additional information while in a retail store,” she said. “This is especially prevalent in North America.

“To make mobile devices work harder as a shopping companion in-store, retailers should promote their loyalty and reward programs via mobile apps, offer targeted product recommendations and reminders informed by past purchase history and user preferences. Retailers should also consider developing strategies for the adoption of in-store beaconing to enable delivery of mobile-enhanced offers and a more relevant shopping experience.”

Mobile satisfaction
The researchers who authored the report spoke to consumers from 19 countries around the world, asking a list of identical questions to each participant. Across every demographic, mobile use remained high.

An average of 75 percent of consumers have used their mobile device to purchase something within the last six months. Nearly 25 percent of all surveyed consumers said that those mobile purchases are made weekly.

The report notes that while 54 percent are mature mobile shoppers – they have been making mobile purchases for more than a year – 43 percent have only just adopted mobile commerce, meaning that the market continues to grow.

Nearly one third of all purchases made by the surveyed consumers come from mobile, whether that means they were purchased through a mobile shopping site or mobile payments were used in-store.

While shopping habits vary by location, what seems to be globally true is that consumers find mobile commerce more convenient than other forms of commerce and that the larger share of consumers are satisfied with their mobile shopping options.

The report found that 80 percent of global consumers are satisfied with their purchase experience, with more developed parts of the world such as the U.S. seeing that number go even higher.

The biggest factors driving that satisfaction are convenience and speed. Forty-nine percent of consumers said purchasing through mobile was easier and 46 percent said it saved time for their busy schedules.

“Brands should continue their investment in advertising on mobile to connect consumers with relevant and personalized messaging that can help trigger product interest and purchase intent,” Ms. Bager said. “Mobile-specific and/or mobile-only shopping events and promotions can further elevate mobile as an integral purchase platform.”

Security concerns
There are still areas in which mobile needs to earn the trust of consumers before they will adopt. The main barrier to adopting mobile commerce was trust and security, the report found.

Consumers still have reservations about entering their credit card information into mobile sites or onto their mobile wallets in a way the regular ecommerce that they do not feel about regular ecommerce.

Consumers are also concerned with their privacy. They want their information to be kept safe not just from hackers and criminals but from having that information be sold unscrupulously to the highest bidder.

In addition to keeping their financial information secure, it is important for brands to be open and honest about what their consumers’ information will be used for, if their trust is to be earned.

“As we have seen in recent news reports of data security breaches, online data security, especially when related to financial transactions and purchase history, is a top concern for consumers,” Ms. Bager said. “To ensure a trusted relationship with mobile consumers, brands must make every effort to minimize privacy concerns, for example by reinforcing and safeguarding mobile purchase data and personal information.

“Developing a seamless shopping experience on mobile is also crucial,” she said. “By providing easy to discover, compare and review products, as well as making sure mobile web pages and apps load quickly and that transactions are glitch-free and seamless can go a long way to enhance relationships with mobile consumers.

“Highlighting the importance of a quality mobile user experience, Google, for instance has found that brands like Walmart have experienced improvements of up to two percent in conversion rates by reducing their mobile web site page load time by four seconds.”