Going Mobile?

2013 was the last year for business’ to get on the mobile train. 2014 is the year of mobile and every business must be prepared. No apologies for 2014. If you aren’t going mobile, then you better prepare for what that means for your business – a lot of missed opportunities.

Check this stat from the 2013 holiday shopping days: Out of 400 million online shopping visits during Thanksgiving and Black Friday this year, one in four online sales occurred on a tablet or smartphone according to Adobe. WOW! Is your mind blown yet? Yes, mobile is taking over. In 2012, it was predicted that there would be more smartphones in the world than there are people. And, by 2016 there could be 10 billion smartphones. That’s 1.4 mobile devices per capita.

Think about this for a minute – where is your phone? Is it right next to you? Is it in arms reach? Are you reading this on your phone? Whatever you may be doing, you most likely know where your phone is at all times. There are 3 main things consumers are doing while on their phones: shopping, checking their social pages or playing a game. Most, if not all business’, can fit into one of those categories. If you aren’t in the eCommerce or the gaming/app industry, you certainly are in the social industry.

This means it’s also time to get social, while going mobile. Social media is another trend for 2014, meaning if you aren’t on it, you are missing opportunities to talk directly to your audience in a relaxed setting. Now, more than ever, a consumer wants to trust the brand before purchasing. They are researching on their smartphones, going onto social sites to see what their friends are doing, buying, liking.

Consumers are doing their homework. With mobile devices, consumers can easily price compare and check reviews all in the comfort of their own home, on the couch. Check these numbers from G.E Capital: 25% of people always conduct online research prior to purchase and 46% of people research purchases for items over $116.

Here are the final numbers for online holiday shopping 2013, according to Adobe:
 

• $1.06 billion in online Thanksgiving Day sales, up 18% from 2012.
• $1.93 billion in online Black Friday sales, up over 30% from 2012.
• iPad tablets drove $417 million in sales, more than the combination of $126 million in iPhone smartphone sales and $106 million in Android phone sales.
• Mobile accounted for $419 mil­lion of Cyber Monday sales, or 18.3% of all online sales
• Tablets drove $290 mil­lion in Cyber Monday sales.
•  Smartphones drove $129 mil­lion in Cyber Monday sales.

The bottom line: if you aren’t mobile – good news is you still have 11 days left of the year to get on that, bad news – you have probably missed several opportunities to get in front of your customer (they way they want to see you).