Knowing what consumers like, don’t like and how they shop is important for your business. The customer journey is constantly changing and with introductions such as digital payment solutions, the customer journey has changed even more. To keep up with what is happening in the mind of the consumer (when they are shopping), you need to keep up with mobile shopping trends.
Mobile shopping is also known as M-commerce. M-commerce is a type of e-commerce which enables users to access online shopping platforms without using a desktop computer, only their phones.
Mobile shopping, or m-commerce, includes in-app purchases and online shopping (Shein and Temu). It also covers online food delivery services like Checkers Sixty60 and Uber Eats.
M-commerce includes mobile banking, marketplace apps, and digital wallets. Examples of digital wallets are Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Wallet.
Now as a business owner, you have to keep up with all these tech solutions and how the consumers are buying using them. These are the trends you have to take note of constantly to ensure your business shopping methods work for the modern-day consumer.
In this article, we will look at some of the mobile shopping trends which are popping up in the world and especially South Africa.
Most Popular Mobile Shopping Categories
The first trend we will look at is the shopping categories. These are the categories which showcase the reasons why South Africans are shopping online. According to Statista, the most popular shopping categories (in order) are:
- Clothing (54%)
- Shoes (40%).
- Food and beverages excluding restaurant delivery (30%).
- Cosmetics and body care products (28%).
- Accessories (24%).
- Medical and other health products (24%).
- Electronics TV, smartphones etc. (23%).
- Books, movies and games excluding downloads (17%).
- Household appliances (17%).
- Bags and luggage (15%).
- Furniture and household goods (13%).
- Stationery and hobby supplies (13%).
- Sports and outdoor goods (12%).
- Toys and other baby products (12%).
- DIY and other garden products (8%).
- Pet products (8%).
Additional stats include:
- People who have not bought anything online (9%).
- Other reasons (7%).
The percentages next to each category indicate the reason for why the survey respondents used online shopping platforms. The survey had over 2000 respondents between the ages of 18 and 64.
Customer Centricity Wins
Customer centricity means putting customer experience first throughout your business’ actions and attitude. It is the brand culture that you present to your customers. If you want your business to be successful in the future, you need to pay attention to customer centricity.
According to ecommerce.co.za, in recent times the success of your online retail store is centred around customer experience and customer satisfaction. Additionally, 75% of respondents regarded customer experience as highly significant and important. 23% of respondents see it as somewhat important.
This means that if you want people to continue shopping on your website, you need to ensure the experience is seamless, quick and easy for them. This means ensuring your website is always up to date and that you use a secure payment gateway.
Online Shopper Conversion
According to Statista’s Digital Market report, there will be approximately 11,7 million more e-commerce users in South Africa by 2025. This number is predicted to grow to 21,52 million by 2029.
For business owners this emphasises the importance of having a competent website. Your website will bring more customers to your business because you will offer them the opportunity to purchase your products or services online at any time and anywhere.
E-commerce and M-commerce Domination
Mobile shopping or m-commerce will only contribute more to the growth of online shopping. As we can see with the above-mentioned stats, most consumers in South Africa prefer using their smartphones over computers for online shopping.
This is also influenced by the growth of people who have smartphones. There are approximately over 20 million smartphone users in South Africa. As these users gain trust in online shopping platforms, there will be more m-commerce users.
You need to prepare your business for this growth by ensuring that you get a website for your business (if you don’t have one already) and invest in a secure payment gateway. Alternatively, you can list your products on online marketplaces like Amazon South Africa.
Digital Payment Gateways
With the growth of online shopping, comes the growth of digital payments. Digital payments are transactions that are made online through a secure payment gateway. Some of the most popular payment gateway platforms include PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Stripe and Ozow.
If you want consumers to be comfortable with buying on your website, you need to ensure that the payment gateway you use is secure and supports their mobile devices.
Personalised Customer Experiences
Making things unique and personal to your consumers makes them want to keep coming back. Using personalisation creates a more unique and tailored customer experience. You can do this by sending personalised marketing materials which are targeted to the user, offering promotions on their favourite products and providing them with personalised product suggestions on your website.
If you want to do this, you need to invest in a robust customer relationship management tool. These tools can help you track your customers’ behaviour and nurture the relationship you have with them through targeted marketing.
These trends present an outline for you on how the modern-day consumer is buying, what they are buying and what they need to buy online.
Invest in the right technology today to get ahead of the market and benefit from the growth of mobile shopping/ m-commerce.
If you need help with finding the right tech tools for your business, read our article about affordable tech tools for SMEs.
