THE M-COMMERCE ERA

Open your eyes, look around you. You’ll find on your own that technological evolution has completely changed our lives, at the individual, social and economic level. Our smartphones are the tool that keeps us constantly connected with the world. At any time of the day you can read a book, talk to friends and family on the other side of the world and find all the answers we need. In every moment of the day you can read a book, communicate with your friends and families on the other side of the world and find all the answers we need. And furthermore, through your smartphones, you can buy pratically everything. Books, furnitures, even the weekly shop. Over the years many companies have started to realize the importance of small mobile devices in the everyday life and this has led them to adapt their strategies in an attempt to follow the new trends generated by users. Applications, websites that fit automatically at the device from which they are viewed, post on blogs and promotional videos: an evolution that has led more and more people to purchase products and services via a mobile device.

The massive use of smartphones in the purchasing rites leds to the emergence of a new dimension in which they move, faster than ever, market dynamics: the m- commerce is born. Short for Mobile commerce, this term covers all those transactions that occur with the use of a mobile device. In fact, as reported by SmartInsights, 80 percent of the users who use the Internet has a smartphone. This is incredible and it help us to understand why the focus on mobile devices should be a priority for everyone who owns a business website. An evolution of the futuristic e-commerce, m-commerce skip all the steps, giving the buyer the possibility to get their hands on the product and adapting to the world increasingly mobile and less fixed. So, to ensure an experience of successful e-commerce on the mobile-phone, it becomes an indispensable requirement for merchants of all kinds, which can find in M-commerce the opportunities for new entry, an additional sales channel to reach hand for all and the possibility of hooking customers otherwise inaccessible. To check transactions at any time, to be able to count upon security systems that smartphones only offer (such as the recognition of fingerprints for purchases), offline contents, push notifications and much more: there are many benefits from purchasing via smartphone. Benefits which the user, once experienced, will not be able to do without it.

Worldwide, cases of m-commerce success that led to the platforms spotlight become real status symbol have multiplied.

Amazon, eBay and Booking, as well, have been forced to change their face again, creating a finger-friendly app that encourages the purchase and accompanies the customer before, during and after its choice. The application, born as a “branch” of the main shopping platform represented by the website – true corollary of e-commerce – becomes an independent entrance for all purposes, with an independent channel and a fast track reserved for users otherwise there would have never made access. Platforms like Asos and Kimberly-Clark could reinvent themselves, adapting perfectly to the new market dynamics, conquering new previously inaccessible slices of, Millennials first of all, skilled users of digital content of any type, perfectly in line with language and mechanisms used by the m-commerce.

So if we want to make the most of the m-commerce rise, we need to consider these phenomena and improve the customer’s experience not only during the purchase phase. The Facebook research showed that 70 percent of who buys from mobile devices believes that it can improve the experience of browsing and transaction: apps and responsive eCommerce portals should therefore always be more user centric and to fully satisfy the needs’ customers. (V.L.)