Written by Sharon Rosa-Bohrer
In our age of instant gratification, any tool that makes the customer’s life easier makes for a happier customer and a more competitive merchant. With the fast uptake of fintech changing economies around the world and our reliance on mobile devices, customers always have powerful purchasing technology at their fingertips. Although consumers use mobile to interact with retailers, when it comes to actual purchases, mobile lags significantly behind desktop. Despite mobile devices accounting for 62% of web traffic, it results in only 23% of sales.1 Merchants need to close this gap by incorporating fintech in new and creative ways.
Creating a customer-friendly, secure, seamless mobile-first payments experience should be the goal of every merchant. So how can businesses enhance consumer purchasing power at that point of mobile engagement? Distributed commerce is the latest answer.
Distributed Commerce Delivers
Distributed commerce means selling where the customers are- whether that is social media apps (like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter), mobile streaming apps like You Tube or Netflix, or online marketplaces like Amazon. Distributed commerce will have profound impact on the retail shopping experience. It shifts the focus from exclusive shopping “channels” to the consumers as the Point of Sale- people who shop, wherever they are, as part of an online experience they are already having. According to PayPal, merchants need to engage themselves in the individual social experience that peer-to-peer payment transaction apps like Venmo now provide to create a stronger merchant/consumer relationship and brand loyalty (Magento Imagine 2018). To do this, merchants must provide consumers with accurate and detailed product information necessary to make an informed purchasing decision at that point in time where they are engaged and interested. This is not a linear buying experience, but rather one with many consumer touchpoints on the web, mobile, social media, and retail stores.
The growth of mobile shoppers among millennials is a trend that merchants can capitalize on by appealing to millennials’ experience and emotional connection to a brand lifestyle. Millennials represent the largest generation in the workforce. They expect the same shopping experience across B2B and B2C and they want it from desktop to mobile 2 – a seamless purchasing experience with a variety of payment options. E-commerce, mobile shopping and social media are critical to selling in today’s environment. So how do you do it and do it well?
Marketing Inroads
Savvy marketers must use the app analytics data being collected on user behavior, preferences and purchases to the advantage of their brand. (See “Artificial Intelligence is Transforming Mobile Applications”.) By targeting a user’s unique shopping preferences and behavior across devices and platforms, merchants can make the buying happen “on the go.” Merchants must be able to sell to consumers everywhere and anywhere online, wherever consumers spend time and products/services are being discussed or discovered- emails, blogs, social shares, articles, ads, and apps.
As fintech continues to advance, we will see distributed commerce integrate more often and seamlessly with our mobile experience to encourage mobile opportunities to buy products and services in several ways3:
- Shop via voice technology
- Shopping via mobile image recognition
- In car ordering
- Advertising driving commerce
- Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality
For businesses to be successful they must look to turn every online consumer interaction into a chance to convert. Distributed commerce seeks to make all brand images instantly shoppable mobile payment opportunities which will increase user engagement and conversions, and ultimately the bottom line.
Join Us at Mobile Payments Conference 2018!
Learn more about distributed commerce and its potential for your business with a PayPal facilitated discussion including Venmo, GrubHub and others at Mobile Payments Conference 2018, August 22-24th in Chicago. Register Now!
1 comScore Media Metrix Multi-Platform and e-Commerce/m-Commerce Measurement, Q3 2017
2 Campagnolo, Rachel. “3 ways to succeed with Mobile Commerce”. Web blog post. PayPal Stories. 23 May 18. Web. 8 June 18.
3 Scartz, Joe. “Understanding the Rise of Distributed Commerce (And How to Capitalize On It)”. Forbes.com. Forbes Media Inc, LLC. 14 Feb 18. Web. 6 June 18.
