Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Mobile App vs. Mobile Browser for mCommerce?

By John Rizzi, SVP Product Marketing and Strategy, Tickets.com

The explosion of Smartphone usage and everything mobile is well-documented. Trying to capture a piece of the m-commerce juggernaut can be intimidating and is filled with choices and buzzwords: native app or mobile browser, iOS, Android, Blackberry, and don’t forget all the carriers and their ad-ons. With all the hype, it’s easy to think you’re missing the boat and you have to do something – NOW! While it’s true that mobile commerce is exploding; mobile purchases accounted for only 1% of ecommerce sales in 20101. And, even though the growth in m-commerce is exponential, estimates are it will still only make up 7% of e-commerce sales by 20161.

So - it’s not too late.

The first decision you need to make regarding your mobile strategy is between a site optimized for a mobile browser or an application written specifically for the Smartphone; such as the iPhone, Android or Blackberry. There are three reasons that make this decision an easy one:

1. Broader reach – mobile browser will work on any phone that has internet – period. No worrying about picking the “right” mobile platform.
2. App saturation – with hundreds of thousands of mobile applications available, there is growing evidence that consumers are becoming overwhelmed by the number of apps on their phones.
3. Faster and cheaper – it’s much easier and less expensive to build and maintain a mobile optimized site than build native apps for one or all of the major mobile platforms

So if you haven’t “gone mobile” yet, I strongly encourage you to consider the mobile browser approach.


1Forrester Research http://www.internetretailer.com/trends/sales/

1 comment:

Mobile Application Development said...

as i think as per my experience i can say mobile Application is really good for eCommerce Business. because if use will use browser they can also open in same browser. but if user use apps they will only get your eCommerce information. you can track on your way.