Mobile retail purchases to hit more than $700 billion by 2018

Payments on mobiles and tablet devices are expected to account for 30 per cent of all electronic retail by 2018, double what is accounted for in 2013.

According to research team Juniper Research, mobile retail spend totally $182 billion (£110 billion AU$203 billion) in 2013, but is expected to hit $707 billion (£430 billion, $AU791 billion) by 2018.

In a report entitled 'The Mobile Payment for Digital and Physical Goods' the researchers also found retailers were increasingly looking towards developing strategies centred on mobile retail. Retailers are using mobiles to facilitate payment and product discovery, and also to retain customers.

The size and scale of purchases from mobile devices have been increasing steadily for some time. A trend is emerging among the devices used, however, with purchases on tablets overtaking those on mobile towards the end of 2013.

A change of strategy

The report also addressed the trend of "showrooming" where customers see products they like in-store and then browse their mobile devices to compare prices on the internet and other stores. A solution, the team suggests, would be to deploy mobile point of sale tablets in store to offer price matches.

The author of the report, Windsor Holden, said: "This means that not only is the retailer proactively offering the consumer the opportunity to price check in-store, but that the purchase can be made immediately, without having to queue elsewhere in the store."

2013 has already been dubbed as 'the year of the mobile Christmas' with sales in all fields from mobiles growing as much as 135 per cent since 2012.

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