By
2015, companies will generate 50 percent of web sales via their social presence
and mobile applications, according to Gartner.
Vendors
in the e-commerce market will begin to offer new context-aware, mobile-based
application capabilities that can be accessed via a browser or installed as an
application on a phone.
As
the number of mobile phones overtakes PCs, customers will use mobile browsers
and applications as the main points of interaction.
“E-commerce
organizations will need to scale up their operations to handle the increased
visitation loads resulting from customers not having to wait until they are in
front of a PC to obtain answers to questions or place orders,” said Gene
Alvarez, research vice president at Gartner.
Customers
are clamoring for new and easy ways to interact with the organizations they
deal with, and no company should think itself immune to this new business
dynamic. As more people use smartphones, they will expect an extension of their
customer experience to be supported by this kind of device while demanding that
social aspects of the Web be intertwined with this experience.
At
the same time, organizations are looking toward new countries and regions for
growth. As a result, it is time to take a fresh look at your organization’s Web
sales capabilities to ensure that social software, mobile technology and
globalization are part of your organization’s online future.
Industries
such as entertainment, software development/publishing and media are being
driven by fast-moving changes in their businesses, such as mobility, and the
increasing number of mobile devices available to their buyers. Others are
finding that sales of additional services and products can be added to their
customer-service-focused websites.
Due
to consumerization, sites in all industries are being impacted by customer
experience delivered in the retail space, as customers continue to use their
online experiences as the benchmark by which to evaluate all others.
Gartner
predicts that by 2013, 80 percent of North American and European online sellers
will expand into Brazil, Russia, India, Africa, Japan or China. Organizations
based in North America and Western Europe are already launching website-based
sales operations in new countries, in the hope of expanding to new markets.
These
organizations believe that untapped countries can spur growth by enabling the
enticing of potential customers who have never purchased from the organization,
but who have a desire for its products.
The
increasing availability of access to the Internet via PCs, laptops and mobile
devices is creating new sales channels in countries, because entry barriers are
lowering, thereby increasing the number of online shoppers. By entering these
countries via an Internet sales model, organizations can establish a presence
in locations without having to create a physical sales location.
E-commerce
managers in leading organizations and industries, such as travel, hospitality,
retail, consumer electronics, media and entertainment, will begin to take
advantage of GPS location services enabled by phones to push personalized,
location-based content to mobile devices for users who have subscribed to these
services.
This
content will be created via the use of customer patterns and their link to
driving sales. These organizations will also have connected (via Web browsers
and mobile applications) to many social communities, enabling the organizations
to tap into the social networks of customers and leverage the wisdom of the
crowd.
By
Telecomlead.com Team
editor@telecomlead.com
