Telecom Lead India: Juniper Research said the value of
transactions for digital and physical goods purchased via mobile devices is
expected to exceed $730 billion annually by 2017.
Transaction growth will be driven by the increasing scale
of real-world (non-digital) purchases from major brands and retailers, with
companies such as Domino’s in the US and Argos in the UK already seeing 6-7
percent of all sales occurring via the mobile channel.
As consumer tablet adoption continues to rise, there will
be significant migration of purchasing activity from laptops and desktops to
tablet devices, with consumers increasingly engaging in online shopping while
watching TV.
The trend will result in mobile and nomadic devices
accounting for 30 percent of eRetail within five years.
Such transactions would continue to comprise a small
minority of a global retail sales marketplace currently worth more than $16
trillion.
Report author Windsor Holden said mobile is increasingly
being deployed at all touchpoints in the retail process – product discovery,
product purchase, customer retention.
There is a growing importance of the mobile device as a
hub, marrying remote and physical purchases. It cited the example of the eBay
Fashion App and Image Swatch, where consumers take or upload a photograph of an
item to search for a product online.
eBay is planning to enhance this application by enabling
users to compare prices and item availability both online and via partner
bricks-and-mortar stores: the end user can then pay for the item via PayPal
before picking up the product from the local store.
