Adoption of Mobile Commerce

The convergence of the two fastest growing industries – the internet and the mobile communication – has led to the creation of an emerging market for mobile commerce (M-commerce). Although the M-commerce market is relatively young, mobile online shopping is rapidly reaching a critical mass of businesses and individual users. It contributes the potential to deliver the most of what the internet can offer plus the advantage of mobility. It gives mobile communication devices such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDA) the ability to pay for goods and services.

M-commerce is difficult to define and can be interpreted in a variety of ways. This is because M-commerce is a fairly new phenomenon and several definitions of it exist. It can be defined as “all activities related to a (potential) commercial transaction conducted through communication networks that interface with wireless devices”.

Another definition of M-commerce is “the use of wireless device to communicate, interact, and transact via high-speed communication to the internet’’. The three elements of M-commerce – a range of activities, devices, and network types – defines it as “all electronic transactions (e.g., communication interaction, purchase, payment) that use data-enabled wireless device connection to the internet or to a vendor’s private network”

However, the real value of M-commerce lies in its ability to realize the tremendous business opportunity and address lifestyle issues prevalent in an aware, hyper-efficient, “on always” world. Mobile values or m-value signifies the value arising from the mobility of the new medium, i.e., making use of the internet connection while on the move.

M-commerce has, in fact, been defined as “an e-commerce for users on the move”. With the relatively new emergence of M-commerce from the simple service of SMS to mobile payment, such as Apple Pay, service vendors are cautious in introducing more complex transactions and in providing alternative payment services so as not to oversell its potential. Some vendors have rolled out such services to the market on a very small-scale and within a somewhat restricted environment but these trials are sure to be expanded looking at the pickup.

As the mobile commerce industry is still in its infancy, there are many unsolved problems related to its services. One major issue is the development of service that are able to support the diverse array of mobile devices and multiple networks, and provide a foolproof security to consumers, perhaps one reason that the big banks are yet to get on-board with this. Further complicating this is that software and interface vary among different suppliers. Nevertheless, many industry and technology leaders are addressing these problems and thus M-commerce has a great potential as the era of wireless and mobility becomes a trend in the 21st century.

This Guest post was written by Sagar Mandan, a HR and content writer at techssocial.net. He handles all the marketing and SEO service part of his team. You can follow him on techssocial.net as well. During his free time he likes to relax with his family and friends.