In recent years, the amount of people participating in mobile commerce has increased as the number of people who use desktops or laptops to shop is in decline. The tipping point came in August 2014 when 51% of retail traffic stemmed from smartphones and tablets. Smartphones are also not going anywhere anytime soon, with a projected 2.08 billion people using smartphones daily in 2016.
With over a third of the world’s population slated to own a smartphone by 2017, what is your dealership doing to capture the attention of literally ⅓ of the world?
Understanding mobile commerce trends and shopping behavior can give your dealership an advantage over the competition down the street who is afraid of mobile users and does nothing to relate to customers already shopping online. Learn how to leverage mobile commercial trends to win consumers during the entire shopping process.
Definition of Mobile Commerce and How Your Dealership Can Leverage Trends
You may have an understanding of mobile commerce, but what is it exactly? When people use a mobile device, such as smartphones or tablets, to purchase goods or services through an online transaction over a wireless Internet connection, you have the definition of mobile commerce.
One trend that seems here to stay is that customers want to engage with your brand across social platforms. In fact, 82% of customers consult their smartphones inside your store when making purchase decisions (also called “showrooming”). And before they even step foot in your location, 90% of customers will read reviews online to influence their decision to make a visit, let alone a purchase.
If you are not monitoring your online reputation, responding to reviews on social media sites like Facebook, or even neglect to have any presence at all on social media, you are shutting out potential customers and sending a signal that you don’t care about them. Even if it is not true, it is crucial you interact with potential customers online.
Another trend is that customers are rarely separated from their mobile devices. A whopping 9 out of 10 customers interviewed in a study stated they kept their phones within reach of them 24/7. This means when a customer is thinking of buying a car, he or she will turn to a mobile device first for research rather than walking into a dealership to ask questions.
Customers shopping on mobile devices expect instant results. 60% of mobile users expect a site to load in 3 seconds or fewer, and 74% are willing to wait only 5 seconds for a site to load before leaving to search for another site. If your dealership is delivering a poor user experience, you will definitely lose customers.
How Dealerships Can Embrace Mobile Commerce Trends
- Know and manage your online reputation. The conversation is occurring with your business among customers online whether you realize it or not, so you should embrace it and interact with your customers.
- Provide a fantastic user experience. Make sure your website scales well, loads quickly on a mobile device, and is easy to navigate from a smartphone or a tablet. And above all, your site must have the right tools on it to make their experience at your dealership exceptional.
- Be proactive in keeping customers in the dealership by providing a mobile transparent vehicle pricing tool they’ll be searching for anyway.
- Find ways to establish trust with modern car shoppers. If you keep viewing mobile commerce trends in a negative light, you will always experience some degree of an “Us v. Them” mentality. But if you embrace mobile commerce trends, you can meet shoppers where they are and easily exceed their expectations.
- Turn your showroom into a digital experience by utilizing tools that help your dealership with appraisal, stocking, and pricing.
By staying ahead of mobile commerce trends, you can provide a seamless vehicle purchasing experience while embracing mobile users, not fighting trends that are here to stay. What are some mobile commerce trends you have noticed and leveraged successfully in your dealership? We’d love to continue that conversation.
