First, I’m honored that ERA asked me to blog about the mobile commerce space in advance of the upcoming eRetailer Summit. I promise to keep my blogs short. I will do my best to keep them pithy and relevant.
I know we have all heard so much about the mobile channel over the last few years. There has been a lot of hype. There have been several false starts. But, I can tell you in all honesty that mobile is here, now. A lot of research will be published over the next months that detail how important multichannel marketing has become in terms of customer retention, conversion rates and ROI. Best-of-breed retailers all have multichannel strategies in place and are myopically focused on how to expand the scope and efficacy of that strategy. Mobile has become a critical component of such a strategy.
I thought I might offers some great statistics, each released over the last few weeks, that can help as you think about your mobile strategy and allocation of marketing budgets. In these extraordinary times, cost/benefit analyses are a must. Every dollar spent will be scrutinized for ROI and necessity. Still, there seems to be little doubt that mobile has arrived in a big way. Retailers who do not incorporate a mobile solution as part of their multichannel strategy do so at their own peril.
• 17 million iPhones have been sold to date
• 500+ million apps have been downloaded from Apple’s App Store, with more than 200 million downloaded since December
• Visa is launches mobile payment solution using Google’s Android technology
• Mobile devices are expected by many to be the dominant method of connecting to the Internet
• More than 270 million estimated cell phone subscribers in the United States
• Mobile is a trillion dollar business! Some context here… automobiles are a half trillion business, IT is a half billion dollar business, TV and radio combined, half a billion, advertising, half a billion
I could go on for a long time like this, but I hope we all get the picture.
You can meet with David Gould of mShopper live at the eRetailer Summit’s Solution Zone on Sunday, March 1, from 12:00 p.m.—3:00 p.m. Register here!
Tags: android, apple, blog, cell phone, commerce, david gould, Electronic Retailer, electronic retailing association, ERA, eretailer summit, Google, iphone, marketing, Mobile, mshopper, solutions zone
[...] my last blog post, I cited a factoid regarding 17 million iPhones having been sold to date. In fact, Apple’s App [...]
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