written by Andrew McGarry

Not all eCommerce platforms are created equal.

If I’ve learned anything from working alongside eCommerce platform developers over the last year it’s that legacy code will kill you.

There is no point investing in a platform if it’s already out of date.

There is no point investing in a platform if the cost of maintaining it is out of proportion to other solutions.

There is no point investing in a platform if it’s not future-proof.

One Web, Multiple Devices

I’m a great believer in ‘One Web, Multiple Devices’, but that doesn’t stop eCommerce managers and directors from searching online for “mobile website solutions” and wondering what mobile platform they should invest in.

The truth is that even if you can get past the sales pitch and evaluate a mobile platform’s functionality, you need to know if your investment has the right type of foundation so that you can build upon it over the next five years.

For example, if you bought a high-spec PC today you would want it to be easy to upgrade.

If someone tells you in 12 months time that you need a new motherboard, CPU and GPU, you’re actually changing the guts of the machine – and you were sold the wrong solution. The same principle applies to the technology you’re going to use to enable all internet capable devices to display your website in a user-friendly way.

IBM’s Predictions

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of how mobile is changing our lives.

Paul Bloom, IBM’s Chief Technology Officer for Telco Research, has written an excellent blogpost on the matter.

“Your mobile device knows where you’re going, where you’ve gone, what you’ve bought, where other people have gone and bought, and other data that could change the way people start thinking about their daily routines”.

Barely a week old, the article contains a lot more substance than the obligatory lip service you’re likely to come across on Mashable.

Predictive analytics is just one of the ideas Paul Bloom touches upon and the whole piece is likely to fire the imaginations of all tech enthusiasts. It’s highly recommended reading.

If you were developing a mobile platform solution that incorporates mCommerce, it certainly makes sense to be aware of what mobile developments are just around the corner.

Marketing vs Innovation

Apple’s success in hardware has been built on giving people what they need just before they realised they needed it. If you’re waiting on your customers to tell you want they want, then even in a software as a service environment, you’re failing to be proactive.

Innovation is an easy word to throw around. It’s much more difficult to execute it.

When you’re researching, don’t confuse slick online marketing with software innovations.

After all, the best software developers I know couldn’t market a product if their lives depended on it! And that’s a good thing.

written by Andrew McGarry

As shoppers play chicken with the high street, waiting on the inevitable Christmas sales and discounts to begin, retailers can at least be thankful for online shopping through mobiles.

Making money from mCommerce and/or social commerce (think Facebook pages that can handle payment) is providing much needed revenue.

The UK media in particular has talked so much about budget cuts and austerity that it’s not surprising that consumer confidence is low.

To know which way the wind is blowing in relation to mobile eCommerce, you only have to look as far as Google.

Where Google goes, there’s money to be made. Affiliates discovered that in 2011 as evidence appeared suggesting that the search giant is less than happy with others making money where it could be. Well, it is the world’s biggest ad man after all.

So the huge push towards making the web mobile-friendly shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, if we spend more time online with devices, that’s more time when we can be subjected to ads.

But does the claim that “Mobile turned a corner this year” really hold up?

Compared to the previous year or two, the answer is probably yes although it depends what you mean by turn a corner.

Let’s crunch some Mobile Commerce numbers from eConsultancy via IMRG.

“During Q2 2011 visits to e-commerce sites from mobile devices accounted for 7% of overall traffic, up from an average of 1.4% in Q1 2010.

The research also shows that UK mobile shoppers are buying more and are now making 3.3% of e-commerce purchases from mobile devices. This is an increase from 0.4% at the beginning of 2010.”

The day eConsultancy published this article, I was completing a mobile commerce analytics report for a client (a high street fashion brand). The client’s mobile revenue was coincidentally 3.3% of their total. Looking at various other clients, the trend is repeated and starts to look familiar.

So far the rise is unlikely to make any SME MDs or CEOs lose any sleep over missed opportunities.

However, this was looking at data before entering the end of year shopping spike.

In America, the holiday season has revealed exactly how valuable mobile sales can be.

“Last January, mobile was 2 percent of our sales and this holiday season, one out of three sales is coming via mobile,” one retailer said. “Every month I think we’ve hit a high in terms of mobile growth and the next month it keeps growing.”

One out of three sales is staggering.

Despite suffering from a headcold and not particularly looking forward to my Monday morning 6.45am start, let’s distract ourselves for a few minutes with the latest mCommerce stories hitting the web.

Seeing as it’s Sunday, there may be a few links to things that have cropped up in the last week or so that I have yet to highlight. Apologies for the lack of commentary so far but once I’ve developed the site some more it won’t be long before more in-depth rants analysis naturally takes over.

• Why Your Business Needs a Mobile Website Right Now – Mashable set out the key reasons why businesses need to sort out their mobile strategy while pimping Hubspot and linking to obvious places like Google’s HowToGoMo

• Building a Mobile Ecommerce Dashboard in Google Analytics – Businesses of all sizes should be constantly looking for ways to improve their analytics capabilities and this guide sets out the basics for a custom dashboard.

• An IE6 Option: Treat As Mobile – Microsoft are working on a solution to “silently” upgrade all pre-IE9 users to the latest version. Regardless, this is an interesting take on the old problem of IE6.

• Mobify Brings Mobile Commerce to Online Merchants – While it may look like an advertorial, Mobify’s mobile web platform is picking up some cool clients like Threadless and if the interview here is anything to go by, they know their stuff.

• Desktop vs. Mobile Websites: Know the Differences – This is a dummies guide to mobile websites and the type of design considerations you may wish to consider. Only read this if you’re not tech-savvy or you’re the MD/CEO of a company who thinks LinkedIn profiles are accurate.

written by Andrew McGarry

We’re only a week away from Christmas Eve so Need Mobile is breaking out the snowman images.

Don’t worry, there will be plenty of time in 2012 for blogposts debating whether female tech cover stars like @oliviamunn help magazines like T3 to survive.

But let’s put our cynicism aside and catch up on the latest mcommerce stories making the news.

• Canadian mobile payment technology reaches over $1 million in daily credit card processing - More data around online shopping trends.

• “The Mobile Cloud Computing Market Will Generate 45 Billion Dollars in Revenues by 2016″ Says the Latest Visiongain Report - There’s a link to the report itself contained in the article.

• Travel & hospitality brands need to make mobile a top priority for 2012 - Tourism markets, if they haven’t already, need to sort out their mobile strategy for 2012 or get left behind.

• How does Nokia Money mobile payment service work in India? - More information on Nokia Money mobile payment services, following up on previous update.

• Do Shoppers Using Cell Phones and Tablets Need More Protections? - Privacy concerns discussed by medicaldaily.com so no Daily Mail style OTT nonsense.

• Shopping While You Tweet – Payvment Supports Mobile Shopping on Twitter - Payvment pushing ecommerce via Twitter.

• Best Magento Mobile eCommerce App - Magento may be every php developer’s nightmare but worth keeping tabs on latest developments.

• Hubspot.tv Video Discusses Mobile Ecommerce Stats for Christmas 2011 - If you can get past the cringe-worthiness of the Hubspot video series, they do discuss some interesting points.

• How to Design a Mobile e-Commerce Site: Our Experience with JQuery Mobile - One site’s experience of a mobile ecommerce solution.

Olivia Munn about to make a mobile site purchase. Possibly.

written by Andrew McGarry

Below is what has caught my eye (not literally, that’d be painful) during the latest mobile ecommerce research.

I’d like to say this will become a daily fixture but let’s instead be realistic and call it the ‘Almost Daily’ update.

So if you’re looking for the top stories around mobile websites, tablet solutions and platforms – visit here regularly!

• 40 must-read mobile posts from 2011
  Econsultancy list all their best mobile market insights in one handy, link-bait ready place. And it worked because I’ve just linked to it. Worth scanning at least.

• Ecommerce options may open more mobile wallets
  “New data finds consumers are spending with mobile content – magazines, newspapers, etc. – than they are with printed copies. That news will push more brands into the mobile space, to engage consumers with more content as well as shopping options.”

• New TapBuy Technology Increases Conversion by Simplifying Checkout for Shoppers on Mobile Phones
  With conversion optimisation not being a high enough priority for desktop business websites, will mobile website designers get it right this time around? Always worth reading up on latest techniques and tips.

• Nokia enters mobile wallet service
  The idea of alternative methods of payment prompts Nokia India to launch its own solution. Fits in very much with the ideas discussed in my Google Wallet post this week.

The beautiful thief.

written by Andrew McGarry

It’s impossible to blog about mobile ecommerce without talking about micro payments and the likes of Google Wallet.

Google, the biggest data parasite thief and ad saleperson in the world, makes its money from selling ads targeted using your information.

The more information Google can steal get you to hand over about yourself, the more money it can make from ads.

While its marketing team have created a fantastically non-corporate image of itself, it is in truth a beautiful thief.

And everyone loves a pretty girl.

The love/hate relationship I have with the world’s biggest search engine is always in a state of flux.

Love because they’re always throwing brilliantly marketed freebies at us, from Gmail to Google Maps. And we happily take them because we love “free”.

Hate because when you read what Google actually gets up to over at SEObook, it’s impossible not to get angry. There is no other business on earth who can get away with the things they do.

If aggressively trying to obtain your mobile number via email “security” isn’t intrusive enough for you, there’s now Google Wallet.

However, we’re much more likely to show resistance when asked to share our financial details as opposed to sharing with Google what we write and receive in emails, so a much sexier approach will be required.

Google Wallet is a smart, virtual data collector for in-store and online shopping.

It’s Catwoman’s dream data collecting device and as a result, expect her to smile and flutter her big eyelashes at you until you cave in and say, “I suppose there’s no harm in it really…”, at which point it’s no longer theft. You agreed to it.

Google Wallet: coming soon to UK?

Will you bother to read any of the epically long Terms and Conditions that will come with it? Of course not.

Nobody ever reads the T&Cs. If you did you’d never install software like iTunes in the first place.

The idea of making your phone your wallet has been kicking around now for some time. And whenever there’s data to monopolise, you can be sure that the big G will not be far behind.

The personal security issues are huge when you consider how easily some people lose their mobile phones. There’s also the issue of adoption rate. For all the fuss about QR codes, for example, their use is still relatively low.  

It’s a given that tablets and smartphones alongside iPads and iPhones will soon be generating online sales figures that dwarf those of the desktop.  Therefore, micropayments is a battleground that will soon be fought in the UK.

The question is what will your response be when faced with those eyelashes?

Who are you willing to share your financial data with? Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, IBM, and Google would all like to know. And that’s before we get onto the subject of mobile phone providers selling your data to 3rd parties.

UPDATE 14.12.11 – The smart folks over at PPChero (well, @daverosborough anyway) have just blogged about how Google Wallet and online shopping could change in 2012. Useful advice if you’re a SMB, entrepreneur or just super curious.

Finding mobile commerce continues to frustrate many SMBs.

written by Andrew McGarry

Let’s begin with a definition from Wikipedia.

The following is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_commerce

Mobile Commerce, also known as M-Commerce or mCommerce, is the ability to conduct commerce using a mobile device, such as a mobile phone, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a smartphone, or other emerging mobile equipment such as dashtop mobile devices. Mobile Commerce has been defined as follows:

“Mobile Commerce is any transaction, involving the transfer of ownership or rights to use goods and services, which is initiated and/or completed by using mobile access to computer-mediated networks with the help of an electronic device.”

According to comScore, up to November 2011 there were 38 percent of smartphone owners have used their phone to make a purchase at least once.

All of the reports around mobile and tablet usage in relation to buying online are showing that trends are accelerating faster than even the most ambitious predictions. What’s interesting is that the recent boom in digital marketing agencies means that many are offering mobile solutions without having the true expertise to back it up.

Small to medium sized businesses are being quoted large sums of money for solutions without much investigation into the actual business needs.

A recent econsultancy mobile website article revealed a typical quote sceanrio.

“We’ll perform user workshops, we’ll implement an in-depth study of your demographic, we’ll analyse your users’ browsers and screen resolutions, we’ll re-invent the wheel.”
“OK, how much”
“All this for just £20,000”

“You need an app”
“What exactly would the app do over and above a mobile website?”
“I don’t know yet, but you definitely need an app”
“OK, how much”
“£40,000”
“!”

The author’s perception was that he was being ripped off.

“So hang on a minute, I’m asking a web design agency to make me a watered down, 320 pixel wide, seven page version of my existing website, and they want to charge me the best part of an annual salary of a good designer AND a good developer? This can’t be right. Either I’m missing something or they are!”

Having discussed the article with various ecommerce developers, they told me the other side of the story.

That yes, while some agencies do take the mickey with quotes, many businesses underestimate the level of work required to integrate a mobile solution with payment gateways and all of the other ecommerce business requirements.

Researching mcommerce solutions should involve more than looking at the brand logos to see what other clients an agency has worked with.

Many online retail businesses are on platforms with designs that are painfully inadequate for the type of analytics capture and UX analysis that can provide the type of insights that make consistent growth possible.

Over the coming months, NeedMobile.com will be investigating examples of mobile sites and mobile platforms with a view to building up resource material, white papers and case studies.

Bookmark us now and check back regularly for the latest insights.