Smartphones, SMS and M-commerce – Match made in shopping heaven

June 14, 2013 by mlamb

A new report from Alliance Data Retail Services shows the mobile phone is becoming a go to device for mothers to help them with their hectic lives. 96% of moms surveyed said they like receiving SMS/text messages and emails from their favorite retailers. Receiving these types of offers keeps moms engaged and encourages them to visit their favorite retailers.

Most e/m-commerce companies focus on email for delivering promotions and offers. The problem is that most people do not even open most of their email. See the chart below:

If you are trying to reach the 18-24 demographic they don’t even use email:

Among 18-24 year olds, time spent on webmail has declined 34% in the last year alone, and nearly 50% since 2010, according to comScore’s 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus report.

SMS/text messaging on the other hand outperforms email with 97 percent of SMS messages opened and 83 percent opened within the first hour (Frost & Sullivan).

The combination of SMS/text messaging and smartphones begins to make the simple SMS/text message a much more powerful tool to drive M-commerce transactions for the simple fact that more people will see the message when sent via SMS/text messaging vs. email. By providing links to mobile optimized landing pages you can start the path to purchase wherever you would like them to begin.

One of the first steps an e/m-commerce company can do to test the waters is to add the option for customers to opt-in for SMS/text message promotions and offers on registration forms. This is a simple way to see if your customers are open to receiving your offers and promotions via SMS/text messaging.

Don’t think people are purchasing from their smartphones take a look at some of these interesting stats:

Mobile users will make $10 billion of purchases on their phones in 2012 and will account for 3 percent of all online spending by 2016. (Forrester Research)

 35% of m-commerce sales expected to be made on smartphone devices. (eMarketer)

There are many other ways to leverage SMS/text messaging for e/m-commerce companies. Contact us 888-577-6577 to learn how you can increase your sales by using targeted personalized SMS/text messages.

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