Retailers contemplating how to sell to the 40 million-plus active users of mobile Internet in the U.S. alone (per researcher Nielsen Mobile) could start their mobile approach by providing shopping info via a mobile device. Recent research from Shop.org found that half of consumers aged 18 to 34 are using their mobile devices to shop offline more efficiently and with better information.

Fast growth in m-commerce sales

Global m-commerce is accelerating in global consumer adoption faster than the pundits anticipated. A nice reflection of this is eBay’s recent announcement regarding its mobile app for the iPhone and its m-commerce site which have generated $380 million in sales so far this year. With the assumption that the current pace continues, the m-commerce channel for eBay will be 5-6% of its total revenue for 2009, achieved without an elaborately defined effort – just an experimental toe dip.

Little in-house development

InternetRetailer.com found that 83.4% of retailers in m-commerce use vendors to build and help maintain their mobile sites and apps. Numerous vendors are building m-commerce sites and apps, but five have emerged as leaders. mPoria, CardinalCommerce, Moonshadow eCommerce, Usablenet and Digby are the players to watch in mobile commerce technology.

Forrester asked more than 1.000 Dutch consumers about their satisfaction with Dutch websites on thirteen large retail websites. 69 percent reported that they were satisfied or very satisfied with their experiences.

Bol.com (86 percent) has the highest satisfaction rates, followed by Wehkamp.nl (76 percent) and Neckermann.com (75 percent). Bruna.nl (58 percent) came in last.

Dutch consumers were mainly frustrated by sites that made it hard to find - or didn’t have - the products they wanted. Another pain point for Dutch consumers was lack of/not enough pictures of products. Forrester recommends retail websites to prove that fixing usability problems is good for their business.

Especially the small, simple improvements can cause a fast improvement of the ROI. A good starting point is to show the board how other companies make changes which lead to improvement of the conversion, more and larger orders, better churn and online sales.

Last year the total turnover for online consumer spending was € 4,85 billion, a growth of 24% in comparison with 2007. The number of online orders increased with 17% to an average of 5,3 orders per person. This influences the average amount spent per online consumer, which increased with 16% to € 618. Altough the growth is less than in previous years, the market continues to grow with 24%, mainly caused by an increase in the number of orders.

Online consumer spending

As illustrated in the graph below, the share of internet shopping in consumer spending for the total retail segment steadily increases. The share increases about 25% every year from 2,8% in 2005 to 5,7% in 2008.

When we look at the share of internet shopping in the home shopping segment (which also consists of catalog and mail orders) a steady increase can be noticed. The share increases about 10% every year from 68% in 2005 to 89% in 2008.

Frank Sibbel (Blauw Research): “For 2009 we once again expect a large spending increase, despite of the economic crisis and decreasing consumer trust. Consumers will use the web more often for their online purchases and they will spend more money and more often online. In 2009 we expect the online consumer spending to reach € 6 billion.”