Digital Lifescapes

Online retailers have been a source of disruption for many incumbents around the globe. Over the past decade, eRetail adoption has accelerated and in 2015 online payments for physical goods totaled $1.66 trillion, while sales of digital goods and services generated a additional $754 billion. Credit and debit card payments have been the primary payment method in the online arena. There are now about 9.5 billion credit and debit cards in circulation worldwide. Moreover, the dominance of the leading payment card provider is reinforced by the fact that online retailers typically prefer these cards. Meanwhile, there's been an important shift in the market. In the past, the smartphone was used as a means of discovery, but not purchase of products and services. Now, the smartphone is used for both product discovery as well as the actual purchase. New technologies are enabling this shift. eRetail Market Development Trends According to the latest market study by Juniper Research,...

The applications for smartphones within physical retail environments already extend beyond in-store product or pricing comparisons by consumers. Moreover, the future use-cases that are likely to emerge in the coming year will expand across a variety of retail sectors. It has been a breakthrough year for indoor wireless location applications for retail, with ABI Research forecasting deployments to approach 25,000 by the end of 2014 -- that's up by more than 100 percent from 2013. "Vertically, the bulk of deployments are in clothing, big box, grocery, and shopping malls in 2014, driven by a variety of applications such as customer analytics, offers or coupons, product search, staff management, and navigation," said Patrick Connolly, senior analyst at ABI Research . Looking toward 2015, we can expect to see the quick serve restaurant (QSR) market growing with a significant demand for queue management technologies -- as illustrated by companies like Starbucks and Taco ...

Over the past 5 years, the scale of mobile commerce in its various forms -- such as banking, money transfer, retail, ticketing and coupons -- has grown at a remarkable rate. Several key factors have served to fuel the deployment of new transaction-based services and their adoption by end users. Juniper Research has found that the combination of mobile phone and media tablet users will make 195 billion mobile commerce transactions annually by 2019 -- that's up from 72 billion in 2014. According to their latest worldwide market study, highest growth rates are expected in the NFC (Near Field Communications) sector. Moreover, usage is expected to be buoyed by the launch of Apple Pay, together with a host of anticipated deployments by banks using solutions based on HCE (Host Card Emulation) technology. However, the highest net increase in transaction volumes will occur in the digital goods sector, fueled by a surge in micro-payments for in-app purchases, notably within arenas su...

Back in 2003, Apple launched the iTunes Music Store with 200,000 songs offered at 99¢ each and forever changed the music recording industry. Apple has a history of being a disruptor -- they're the ultimate opportunist that knows how to exploit fear, uncertainty and doubt. They find opportunity where the executive leadership of the traditional incumbent players are very weak, indecisive and lack a forward-thinking vision of the future market dynamics. So, is that why they launched Apple Pay , to disrupt the nascent mobile payments industry? Primed and Ready for Exploitation The latest market study by Juniper Research has found that there will be 516 million mobile users of Near Field Communication (NFC ) contactless payment services by the end of 2019, that's up from 101 million this year. Their study findings argue that Apple's introduction of an NFC-based payment mechanism -- now known as Apple Pay -- would stimulate the wider marketplace, helping to address the ke...

Smartphones are increasingly viewed by savvy marketers as a critical enabler -- not merely of ubiquitous connectivity and interactivity, but as a means to engage in a meaningful way with their customers and prospects. From a marketer's perspective, the fact that smartphones are personal and ever-present with their owner -- and that those owners are interacting with their device constantly -- presents them with an opportunity. To the informed marketer, mobile is no longer merely a channel through which to sell goods remotely, but a series of related channels through which their relationship with the customer can be nurtured and developed over time. This is a basic principle of multi-platform marketing communication. The approach can transform legacy marketing practices -- such as the process of offering a discount coupon for redemption -- via the creative application of mobile devices. According the the latest global market study by Juniper Research, they now forecast that t...

The U.S. mobile payment landscape is progressing very slowly. Although two-thirds of American consumers are interested in learning more about transitioning to a smartphone wallet platform, that interest is simply not translating into adoption. While traditional point of sale payment methods continue to reign supreme, a number of third-party mobile wallets are jockeying for position in the U.S. marketplace -- but not all have the vision needed for long-term survival. To endure the inevitable wave of consolidation, a well-defined road-map paired with patience and endurance will be among the many competencies required. According to the latest market study by the Yankee Group, they ranked the staying power of Google Wallet, Isis, LevelUp, Loop, MCX, PayPal, and Square as determined by the strength of their merchant and consumer value propositions and ability to deliver on them. Highlights from the market study include: Mobile wallets remain a story of high interest and low adopt...

Mobile payments continue to represent one of the most dynamic and fast-evolving arenas of our connected society. This evolution encompasses what we now buy via the mobile commerce ecosystem, the payment mechanisms we use to buy it and the devices on which we shop for a selected product or service. Juniper Research now forecasts that annual retail payments on mobile handsets and tablets are expected to reach $707 billion by 2018, representing 30 percent of all eRetail by that time. This compares with mobile retail spend of $182 billion in 2013, when mobile accounted for around 15 percent of eRetail. The latest market study by Juniper found that leading retailers were increasingly developing strategies built around mobile, using it as a hub facilitating payment, product discovery and customer retention. As a result, it found that the size and scale of purchases across both smartphones and tablets was increasing strongly. However, for users owning both devices there was a strong tre...

Major retailers can no longer solely rely upon their in-store point-of-sale (POS) terminals for transactions. They must quickly evolve their POS strategy to offer both online and mobile payment options to customers, that's according to the findings from the latest market study by Informa Telecoms & Media. Retailers that offer multiple payment options -- including a mobile checkout facility -- will be able to serve more customers and reduce loss of sales due to the busy shopper's reluctance to wait in line, especially during the holiday season. The use of mobile POS terminals can help retailers to serve more customers during busy times and issue paperless receipts to customer e-mail addresses, rather than making customers wait in long lines to pay at fixed POS terminals. During the 2012 Christmas holidays, lifestyle brand Alex and Ani implemented mobile checkout technology in several of their U.S. stores and witnessed an impressive 318 percent increase in sales just fr...

The European mobile retail audience grew by 43 percent over the past year, with 20 percent of smartphone users accessing online retail sites and apps using their device, according to the latest market study by comScore . The study included mobile phone usage characteristics across the five leading EU markets -- France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. Mobile online retail adoption is on the upswing -- 1 in 7 European smartphone users reported having completed a retail transaction on their mobile phone in a month. In the three month average ending August 2013, 20.4 percent of the EU5 smartphone audience accessed online retail sites, displaying an increase of 2.8 percentage points in the past year. Spain was the fastest growing market with a growth rate of 66.5 percent to almost 3.3 million smartphone users accessing retail sites on their mobile. Italy ranked second with a growth rate of 61.3 percent to almost 5.6 million smartphone users accessing those sites on th...

Mobile money services for the unbanked, popular in emerging markets, are showing both much faster adoption than m-wallets and related services addressing those with a bank account and a steeper revenue curve. According to the latest market study by Pyramid Research, mobile payments are becoming increasingly integrated into a broader range of mobile services. Furthermore, services such as marketing, advertising, loyalty cards, coupons and discounts are also becoming part of the broader mobile wallet. Mobile network operators in developed markets need to make a long-term commitment to the mobile payment opportunity and have access to large financial reserves to be able to reap long-term benefits. While adoption of NFC-capable mobile devices and readers is finally showing real growth, Pyramid believes that mobile network service providers still face major challenges in mobile contactless payments. The mobile commerce opportunity is becoming an increasingly attractive one, and oper...

The value of mobile commerce transactions conducted via mobile handsets and tablets will exceed $3.2 trillion by 2017, that's up from $1.5 trillion this year -- according to the latest market study by Juniper Research. The increasing popularity of mobile devices for bill payment is reflected in the fact that the mobile banking sector accounts for the lion’s share of transaction values over the next five years. However, to put global mCommerce into context, total financial transactions in the U.S. market alone exceeded $4,400 trillion in 2012. Key Industry Sectors Embrace Mobile The study findings observed that a number of key industries -- retail, airline, financial institutions -- were emphasizing the importance of the mobile channel as an engagement, delivery and payment mechanism. Juniper cited the activities of Visa and MasterCard with regards to NFC certification and the airline industry’s wider eTicketing initiative as key developments in this regard. Furthermo...

Mobile payments, performed via a device such as a smartphone, is clearly a fast growing sector of the global communications and retail-related marketplace. In the next two years many more consumers worldwide will be engaging in making mobile payments, according to the latest comprehensive market study by Portio Research . At the end of 2012, there were 480 million mobile payment users worldwide -- this number is expected to cross the 1 billion users mark by the end of 2015. Moreover, the figure is expected to continue increasing -- eventually reaching nearly 1.5 billion users by the end of 2017. Mobile payment volumes -- that's the total value of goods and services and utility bill payments made through mobile devices annually -- reached $81.3 billion worldwide in 2011. The growth rate enjoyed an increase of 148 percent over the course of 2012 -- to reach an estimated $202 billion. Worldwide, the market is set to grow to reach $410 billion this year, in 2013, and then v...

The number of discount coupons redeemed through mobile phones and media tablet devices is expected to reach 10 billion this year -- that's up by more than 50 percent on last year, according to the latest market study by Juniper Research. Juniper believes that innovative retailers are increasingly seeking to offer mobile as a delivery channel -- both as a means of driving in-store retail and to enhance consumer engagement and retention. It pointed out that while mobile still accounted for a comparatively low volume of coupons issued, retailers had been encouraged by the markedly higher average redemption rate of mobile coupons (approx 10 percent) when compared to traditional print media and PC coupons (typically 1 percent or less). Furthermore, the study findings showed that mobile couponing offered retailers the opportunity to marry their digital and physical assets. "While we’ve heard that online retail is killing the High Street -- witness United Retail filing for...

For the retailer, the mobile device increasingly represents a multifaceted opportunity. It offers the ability to extend remote purchases to a mobile environment, unlimited by the fixed constraints of the desktop PC. In fact, most savvy retailers have already started to utilize mobile devices -- such as smartphones and media tablets -- as a touch-point on each stage of the retail life-cycle. According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, annual spend by retailers on mobile marketing will reach $55 billion by 2015 -- almost double the $28 billion that's expected this year. Their market study of the retailer landscape found that the development of a growing media tablet market had created new opportunities for brands seeking to enhance engagement with consumers. With eCommerce migrating to mobile and nomadic devices, advertising spend on both tablets and smartphones is continuing to grow strongly as retailers (notably in North America and Western Europe) migrate the...

Juniper Research has shared its revised forecasts for the global mobile near-field communication (NFC) market, which now has scaling back its growth estimates for the North American and Western European markets. While their latest market study finds that by 2017 the proportion of NFC-enabled smartphones will be only marginally below previous estimates, global NFC retail transaction values are now expected to reach $110 billion in 2017 -- that's significantly below the $180 billion previously forecast. According to Juniper's assessment, the Apple decision to omit an NFC chipset from the iPhone 5 has reduced retailer and brand confidence in the technology, leading to reduced POS (Point of Sale) rollouts and less NFC campaigns. This in turn will lead to lower NFC visibility amongst consumers and fewer opportunities to make payments, thereby creating a cycle of indifference to NFC technologies in the short term. "While many vendors have introduced NFC-enabled smartphon...

What are the new customer service channels that are gaining traction in the marketplace? How has the concept of customer care evolved? And, what are the challenges and opportunities of "social" customer service? These are some of the key questions that eMarketer considered as part of their market study. The increased adoption of the internet has led to major changes in customer service best practices, according to the latest eMarketer assessment. Savvy shoppers already have an array of online customer service tools at their disposal -- including live chat, social networks and smartphone apps. Today, the stakes are high for all retailers that try to keep up with the current trends. Consumers will quickly punish retailers that do not meet their customer expectations -- but they will also reward those that do. Findings from a Q1 2012 study by the Temkin Group showed that customers are loyal to businesses that provide good customer service. In fact,  86 percent of surve...

The number of consumers receiving coupons via mobile devices is expected to rise by 30 percent in 2013 to more than 500 million people, according to the latest market study by Juniper Research. They believe that continued growth in mobile coupon usage will in part be fueled by the integration of couponing platforms into the the leading social network sites -- such as Facebook. The recent high-profile launch of Apple Passbook is also expected to act as a catalyst to both coupon deployments and user adoption. For example, the marketing services provider Valassis has recently launched a "Red Plum Social Savings" application in the U.S. market -- which was built with the Facebook platform. Meanwhile, third-party marketing and couponing providers -- such as Codebroker, Eagle Eye, Yowza! and Valpak -- have already created apps or microsites which deliver vouchers to Apple's Passbook. In the current mobile coupon marketplace, there is the potential for overlap -- an ec...

What are the main drivers of growing eCommerce applications in China? What role will m-retail play in the Chinese marketplace? These were a couple of the key questions that eMarketer considered during their latest market assessment of the online retailer landscape in China. According to their latest study, online sales in China are flourishing. The Chinese people are embracing the internet for comparison shopping and product research, and marketers are eager to expand operations beyond the established markets of Shanghai and Beijing. As people in China become more comfortable with shopping on the internet, the number of online buyers on the mainland will rise to nearly 220 million this year -- clearly outpacing the U.S. total of approximately 150 million buyers. No other nation offers this online audience of shoppers. By 2016, eMarketer forecasts that 423.4 million people in China ages 14 and older will make an online purchase at least annually. In 2011, B2C ecommerce sales...

Although mobile network operators have relied mostly on connection fees to generate machine to machine (M2M) revenues; network connectivity and connection management revenues represent only 10 to 30 percent of the M2M value chain that's dependent upon communications carrier and geographic location. Value-Added Services (VAS) for application development, enablement, provisioning, management, and system integration are the bulk of the M2M services opportunity in this growing market that's set to reach $31 billion by 2016, according to the latest market study by ABI Research. "No one size fits all. Operator choices to capture the burgeoning M2M services market will be dependent not only on the value of their assets and VAS platforms, but also their partnerships and target market verticals," said Dan Shey, M2M practice director at ABI Research . For instance, connecting coffee vending machines to the internet may be a near term opportunity, but can it grow to a glob...

comScore released the results from the latest market study of U.S. mobile smartphone user shopping behavior, which found that 4 in every 5 people -- 85.9 million in total -- accessed retailer related content on their device in July, 2012. Amazon Sites led as the top retailer with an audience of 49.6 million visitors, while multi-channel retailers including Apple (17.7 million visitors), Wal-Mart (16.3 million visitors), Target (10 million visitors) and Best Buy (7.2 million visitors) also attracted significant mobile audiences. "With nearly 86 million Americans now shopping on their smartphones, this pronounced shift in consumer behavior is simply too large for retailers to ignore, with the future of their business depending on how well they adapt to the new environment," said Mark Donovan, comScore SVP of mobile research. comScore says that adapting to today's online retail environment requires optimizing the experience across multiple platforms -- for both mobile...