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M-commerce is a type of e-commerce that allows people to carry out business transactions through mobile devices. Mobile devices have changed business processes across the world and businesses have realized the importance of mobile channels for attracting customers. Mobile apps are designed for use over millions of smartphone devices to carry out business transactions.
Look at the following pros and cons before adopting the mobile trend for business transactions.
Pros:
1. Convenience: You can do your shopping with just a few clicks from your mobile device. Customers can easily view products and services or download media files from anywhere.
2. Easy connectivity: You can easily connect to the available mobile network and do your commerce transactions. You don’t need a modem or WIFI set up for you to carry the transaction.
3. Instant support: You can easily get 24/7 support through live chats and calls from retailers. If you face a challenge on the purchases, you can quickly reach out to the support team.
4. Personalization: Mobile devices can be customized according to user preferences. You can modify the wallpaper, change the view settings or change the contact information based on email details and e-payments.
5. Time efficient: M-commerce transactions are fast, you only need to the mobile device and internet connectivity to load a transaction. No need for you to go to a physical store to purchase items saving time and money.
6. Mobile payments: You can use the “in-app payment” to directly make payments for the goods and services via the platform without the use of any third parties. You can register for a pre-paid mobile wallet account for all payments.
7. Accessibility: Mobile commerce is available on portable mobile devices and you can use the devices anywhere at any time.
8. Direct marketing & customer engagement: Marketers are now sending personalized marketing deals and offers directly to the customers at the right time and engaging them for better conversion.
9. Location-based marketing: M-commerce uses GPS integration to track users’ locations and businesses can rely on this feature to send notifications to local users for sales conversions.
10. Wide choice: You can shop for a variety of products and services both locally and internationally through your smartphone.
Cons:
1. Security issues: There are a lot of security concerns for entering payment information through your smartphone device compared to when using a laptop or desktop computer.
2. Screen size: Smartphones have a small screen size this makes it difficult to scroll through the page to view product information especially when the website is not optimized for mobile users.
3. Inconvenient: If you want to compare different products before making your big purchase, a desktop will be more convenient for use in such situations.
4. No standard for M-commerce: M-commerce is a new technology in the market and some of the technologies used are underdeveloped.
5. Fraud risk: There is increased fraud risk in mobile marketing and users should transact with caution to avoid being defrauded through various mobile ads.
6. Limited speed: Mobile phones have low speed compared to computers and this will affect the quality of image and view of graphic content. Some m-commerce images may not be clear when viewed through the phone.
7. Technology constraints: The devices used in accessing m-commerce are of low quality and have inadequate memory capacity and low processing systems slowing down the accessibility of products.
8. Download apps: You need to download apps for various e-commerce sites together with the payment system app to your mobile device to ease your transactions.
9. Lack of personal touch: There is no personal interaction and customers rely on reviews left in the system and captivating graphics to make their purchase decisions.
10. Competitive market: Every business is fighting for the same target customers online and there are optimizing their business for mobile commerce creating a lot of competition.
