Shopping with your mobile getting more popular |
|
|
|
Written by Elliott Finch
|
|
Tuesday, 19 August 2008 |
|
Is
it becoming more attractive to shop via your mobile phone? While buying
goods or services over the counter is still the most popular, mobile
buying is fast becoming a popular pastime according to a new report by BT.
Nowadays
people can use their smartphones to get on the internet, watch
television or social network while sitting on the beach or on the train
- so it seems it was only a matter of time before the idea of cutting
stress and time out of out lives by shopping via a mobile phone became
a hit.
According to a survey, over 45
per cent of mobile phone users in the UK have looked at products or
services online, while one in three have searched, price checked and
reviewed a product online and one in five have actually made a
purchase.
There is currently a small
audience at the moment buying music, games and tickets, but there is
also a developing interest in buying gifts, household products and
electronics over the mobile. Who knows, you may be buying your new
plasma while sitting on a bus on the way home from work!
But
the report warned businesses that customer expectations of mobile
shopping could outstrip businesses ability to provide online retailing
services over the mobile internet.
One
in five respondents thought that shops should have sites specifically
for mobile internet users. While 39 per cent said they should be easy
to navigate and a quarter said they needed to load quickly.
"Business's
are fast becoming threatened by a sweep of mobile phone users taking a
lump sum of their profit" said the report. The telephone company also
suggested that it could be a way for shops to increase sales in-store.
This would be by introducing an intranet channel over a store's
wireless network to give smartphone-carrying buyers expert advice.
Businesses using this method would become more green said the report.
Research
forecasts gathered by Juniper Research has claimed that mobile
transactions will increase by 700 percent worldwide, with individual
transactions costing between £1.53 - £2.56.
|