what you need to know about mobile commerce.

Zaarly chief marketing officer Eric Koester had a very informative guest post on Forbes last week that was very timely. Mobile is hot right now. Very hot. Hence, mobile commerce is on the rise. According to Gartner, 19% of all phones sold now are smartphones and according to Morgan Stanley, in the next five years more people will connect to the internet via a mobile phone versus a PC. All of this means that more people are going to be spending money via their phones as opposed to their PCs. The catch is that mobile commerce is a different animal. It is not the same as traditional e-commerce. Eric has smartly outlined seven tips for anyone with a stake in mobile commerce. Here they are (along with my two cents):

• Mobile commerce is here! - Agreed. No doubt about it. But we are still learning how when and how best to use it. Often times I do research on my mobile and then transition over to my laptop to make the purchase if it is a big ticket item. I believe there might be still be a price ceiling regarding people's comfort level in making a purchase on their mobile device.
• "Normal" people start buying from their phones - Yes, Starbucks is out in front in mobile commerce. I see it every week at the shop just up the street. The concept is easy for people to understand as Seattle's mass transit system and new toll bridge use the same idea. Link the app to your bank account and load it when necessary. You can even have it auto-load. Boom!
• Pay attention to privacy - Although I agree privacy is important, it does seem to be going out the window. Younger folks don't care as much about privacy as the older folks. And when the younger folks have kids, they probably will care less. We now live our lives (at lease partially) online and have gotten used to the fact that what we once considered private (like what we paid for our house) now lives in the public realm.
• Mobile advertising is as clear as mud - Bingo. With apps, the mobile web and the traditional web, it is difficult to figure out where to concentrate your mobile ad spend since people access all three on their devices. But with so many folks head's down, scrolling, tapping and swiping, starting out somewhere will be better than staying on the sidelines. Besides, you will still be ahead of the curve and you'll be collecting valuable data.
• Mobile is not just an extension of the web - Agreed. Sort of. It was born from the web, but now it is all grown up and clearly a different animal. People interact differently with it because of it's very nature. They are walking down the street, on the bus, at dinner. The attention span is different. The experience is different.
• Apps aren't dead yet - I don't think they ever will be. Mobile developers are indeed making the mobile web more app-like but until they are able to replicate app behavior 100%, there will always be a place for apps. Besides, can you imagine a time when there won't be an app for that? I can't.

I will leave you with this...we know our phones can do so much more now. They take pictures, pay for coffee, find restaurants, broadcast our location, play games, and on and on and on and on. And what all of these things have in common is that they have our attention, and that's where the potential is.