- Mike Shields

NEW YORK While mobile Web usage is spiking, mobile e-commerce remains sluggish, as businesses and consumers demonstrate a hesitancy to adopt the medium as a shopping vehicle, according to a report issued by eMarketer.

Privacy and security concerns are major obstacles in the minds of consumers and retail advertisers, according to the research. Many people are fearful about sharing personal information and credit-card numbers via their mobile devices -- and that makes brands cautious about offering big-ticket items through mobile commerce systems.

Plus, for brands wishing to sell products on mobile devices, execution is challenging in the current marketplace. For example, since there are so many different phones and different mobile operating systems, it’s not easy -- and not always worth the effort -- for retailers to create shopping applications for every mobile platform.

As as result, “most retailers are either standing on the sidelines or in the midst of planning their mobile commerce strategy,” said eMarketer senior analyst Jeffrey Grau, who authored the new report, Mobile Commerce: Ahead of Its Time.

According to the report, consumers are showing an early willingness to make smaller mobile purchases, such as buying movie tickets and ordering pizza. Even so, “mobile commerce is still immature. Web-enabled mobile phone users are much more likely to employ their devices to get weather forecasts, read news, find movie times and bank online than to buy products,” the report says.


Nielsen Business Media