The world is on a movement toward mobile, with a majority (70%) of Internet traffic taking place on mobile devices (CIO Dive). With this in mind, it should come as no surprise that more online shoppers are making the shift toward mobile commerce (or mcommerce) as well: In fact, almost half (40%) of all online transactions were mobile in 2017, a number that has likely only increased in 2019.

Whether you already run an online business, or if you’re considering starting one, you may want to consider how you can best accommodate your mobile shoppers. Remember, 77% of U.S. adults own a smartphone (Pew Research Center), making this a large consumer base that you most likely don’t want to miss out on.

Before you start building a mobile app or mobile-dedicated site, you may want to consider these 5 need-to-know mobile commerce trends for 2019. That way, you can connect with the mobile market in the best possible way, drive conversions, and boost that bottom line.

1. Mobile as the center of omnichannel marketing.

These days, most marketers seek to offer consumers a seamless shopping experience across channels, from your smartphone or laptop to your trip inside a brick-and-mortar store. Often referred to as omnichannel marketing, this approach is rising in popularity, and with good reason. By providing an experience for consumers across three or more channels, marketers receive a 250% higher purchase and engagement rate (ClickZ).

So, what does omnichannel marketing have to do with mobile? Mobile is often at the center of this marketing approach. For example, Starbucks bridges the gap between the mobile and in-person shopping experience with their mobile app: Users can add money to their app, and use the app in-store to receive rewards. Similarly, Amazon provides a seamless experience from mobile to web: Users can add a product to their shopping cart on the app and then pick up where they left off online.

By leveraging the omnichannel approach, you can reach users wherever they are. Whether they start their buyer’s journey on mobile or end it there, making mobile commerce a part of your omnichannel marketing strategy increases your consumers’ chances of making a purchase.

2. iPhone users are higher spenders.

Unless you’re planning on building a cross-platform app, which will accommodate both Android and iOS users, there’s a strong chance you may choose to build a native app. Many organizations choose to start by building either a native Android or iOS app. If you’re not sure which one is right for you, you may want to consider the operating system generally correlated with higher spending habits.

According to a survey conducted by Slickdeals, iPhone users ($53,251) have a higher salary than Android users ($37,040) on average, as well as tend to spend almost twice as much as Android users on tech purchases per month (PR Newswire). While you’ll want to conduct marketing research specific to your target demographic, this demonstrates a mobile commerce trend toward building iOS apps over Android.

3. More users are using mobile payment.

So maybe you’re incorporating mobile into your marketing strategy, and you've selected your ideal app type, but it’s also important to consider how mobile users tend to shop. One change that’s emerging is how users prefer to pay for their online purchases: using a mobile wallet. Whether it’s Apple Pay or Google Pay, more people are hopping on the digital payment trend.

By next year (2020), the use of mobile wallets is expected to surpass that of physical credit and debit cards (WorldPay). More importantly, most mobile payments are made by mobile users, and most often by Millennials (Pew Charitable Trusts). That said, especially if your target demographic is a younger generation, your mobile commerce efforts should accommodate mobile wallets to encourage quick and easy transactions.

4. Driving conversions with machine learning.

You may be surprised to find that “AI” and “machine learning” are more than just buzzwords: Machine learning, in particular, is increasingly becoming a more critical tool in ecommerce and mcommerce. This in mind, machine learning-based product recommendations account for as much as 31% of ecommerce revenue (Barilliance), making the feature worth implementing for many organizations.  

If you’ve ever shopped with Amazon or Walmart, you know how this works: Machine learning identifies patterns in the consumer’s behavior (e.g. the user looked at a lamp), and the user is then provided with suggestions for similar products they may enjoy (e.g. lamps similar to the one the user looked at). If the user leaves without making a purchase, machine learning can trigger additional mobile features, such as push notifications, to remind the user of the product they viewed.

In this way, machine learning automates the process of helping to ensure that users find what they’re looking for. By doing so, it increases your chances of making a sale—and of course, there are many other great machine learning features that can help as well.

5. Providing customer support with chatbots.

Not only is AI making a more subtle appearance in mobile through product recommendations but chatbots as well. Chatbots can come in the form of bot that carries text-based conversations to auditory conversations, as one might with Siri or Alexa. The primary benefit of chatbots is to offer users with immediate customer support during their mobile shopping experience.

Mobile shoppers are already comfortable using tech to shop and more likely to be accepting of automated customer support. Moreover, with their potential to offer 24/7 customer support, chatbots are always available to meet the predicted uses cases, such as providing quick answers (37%) and resolving complaints (35%) (Apiumhub). Moreover, chatbots could save you money, as they tend to cut customer support costs by an average of 30% (IBM).  

Make these mobile commerce trends part of your strategy!

These are just a few of the mobile commerce trends of 2019. As mobile continues to rapidly evolve with each day, there are certainly more changes to come in the near future. If you have yet to implement any of these changes on your mobile commerce site, you’ll need a software development team who can help.

For more than a decade, ClikFocus has built ecommerce and membership systems for non-profits organizations to enterprise-level organizations. Our goal is to provide businesses like yours with software that provides results. If mobile software is part of your business goals, our team is ready to take your ideas and make them into a reality.   

Take advantage of these mobile commerce trends by contacting us today.