UK retailers shun m-commerce

More than a quarter (28%) of UK retailers do not have a mobile commerce strategy in place and have no plans to implement one, a new survey has found, reveals PC Advisor.

This is despite 87% of retailers saying mobile commerce is already affecting, or will affect brick-and-mortar sales in the next two years.

The survey, carried out by Vanson Bourne on behalf of Kony Solutions, which enables companies to provide applications to any mobile device, questioned 100 IT and marketing managers at UK retail businesses.

According to Econsultancy, compared to US firms such as eBay and Amazon, many UK retailers have been relatively slow to react to the potential of mobile commerce, but that has changed over the past 12 months.

Whereas a year ago, only a small number of UK retailers had some sort of m-commerce offering, big names like Tesco, M&S and John Lewis have a successful mobile presence.

Meanwhile, GoMo News reports that 45% identified native mobile applications as the most critical mobile commerce channel for their business.

The mobile Web came a close second with 40% but SMS or text is still viewed as the most important by a significant 10%.