Mobile commerce to hit $31bn

Despite an exponential growth in the popularity of mobile and smartphone devices, consumers are yet to embrace the concept of mobile shopping with arms wide open, a new report claims, writes IT Pro Portal.

The report by the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based market research company Forrester Research was the outcome of an in-depth study of the rising smartphone and mobile devices market, and the prevalence of that growth when it comes to mobile shopping.

The report by Forrester claims that as of now, only 2% of the total online shopping is done using mobile devices.

However, the firm also expressed its optimism regarding this poor-state-of-being of the mobile shopping trend by saying that the situation would eventually improve to some extent as both consumers and merchants are continuing with the adoption to new devices and technologies.

“Mobile commerce is expected to reach $31 billion by 2016. While this represents a compounded annual growth rate of 39% from 2011 to 2016, mobile commerce is only expected to be 7% of overall e-commerce sales by 2016,” the report read.

According to The New York Times, several things are holding people back from using their phones to shop, according to Forrester.

At the top on the list are concerns about security. These concerns may fade in the same way that they stopped being a barrier to online shopping.

But there are also technical barriers, mobile sites are often slow and unwieldy - and confusion among retailers about how best to pursue their mobile strategies.

While more consumers will purchase more products and categories on their mobile devices over time, retailer investment in the mobile channel continues to remain modest as companies struggle to value the ROI around mobile investments, reports IT World.