I was recently reading through a back log of industry reports that were sitting at the bottom of my Outlook inbox and one in particular caught my eye. It was a refreshing piece of journalism in that it gave an alternative view to the mainstream that suggests Mobile Commerce is the next big thing. Instead, the author said providers should look at the Online Web industry for pointers to what might happen and suggested that straightforward web browsing was the only application that was going to work on a mobile. The rationale presented was that if you look back at the online industry, it never really took off the way we expected it too and therefore, the mobile commerce industry will be the same. According to the report, we won't want to use our mobiles to make payments, we won't want to use it as a ticket on the bus, tube or aeroplane and we certainly won't want to use it to look up product comparisons when we're in the aisle of our local Tesco...
My view is that it is very wrong to compare the mobile channel to the fixed Internet/online channel. For a start the main difference is that it's fixed. For example, who would have guessed we'd use our mobiles to write text messages to each other instead of calling each other? Who would have thought we'd discard our maps in favour of Satnav (which in affect is a mobile device even if you've got a dedicated Tom-Tom which doesn't have a SIM card). You simply can't compare the online world of the fixed Internet with that of a mobile. It's a completely different channel and if application developers focused purely on providing web pages then we'd miss some real benefits to be had from a mobile. At what point did the analysts, for example, buy into the fact that a bit of 3x2 plastic was going to start replacing cash and cheque transactions... Why can't the same transformation in consumer behaviour that kick started the credit card industry manifest itself in the mobile world. As for not comparing products in the aisle, back in 1999 I remember sitting in a Waterstones (or equivalent - it was along time ago) with a coffee, skimming a few books I might want to purchase. Did I buy them at Waterstones? No, I wrote down the title and bought them cheaper on Amazon when I got home. If I can do that in real time, then why wouldn't I? OK, I'm not going to check every sprout I buy in Waitrose for a cheaper online alternative, but if I'm spending £50+ on a product, I certainly would.
As for ticketing, it didn't take the airlines long to get its passengers to adapt to checking in online and printing out their own boarding passes (at their own expense in terms of time and ink by the way). Lufthansa and others are now pushing us to use mobile ticketing. The incentive is a swifter passage through check-in and boarding and real time information about your flight. The incentive for the airline is lower costs. Why wouldn't it work?
If we open our minds and can see real benefit from the mobile channel, then as consumers we will use it. Let's not close off opportunity before it even reaches us...
My view is that it is very wrong to compare the mobile channel to the fixed Internet/online channel. For a start the main difference is that it's fixed. For example, who would have guessed we'd use our mobiles to write text messages to each other instead of calling each other? Who would have thought we'd discard our maps in favour of Satnav (which in affect is a mobile device even if you've got a dedicated Tom-Tom which doesn't have a SIM card). You simply can't compare the online world of the fixed Internet with that of a mobile. It's a completely different channel and if application developers focused purely on providing web pages then we'd miss some real benefits to be had from a mobile. At what point did the analysts, for example, buy into the fact that a bit of 3x2 plastic was going to start replacing cash and cheque transactions... Why can't the same transformation in consumer behaviour that kick started the credit card industry manifest itself in the mobile world. As for not comparing products in the aisle, back in 1999 I remember sitting in a Waterstones (or equivalent - it was along time ago) with a coffee, skimming a few books I might want to purchase. Did I buy them at Waterstones? No, I wrote down the title and bought them cheaper on Amazon when I got home. If I can do that in real time, then why wouldn't I? OK, I'm not going to check every sprout I buy in Waitrose for a cheaper online alternative, but if I'm spending £50+ on a product, I certainly would.
As for ticketing, it didn't take the airlines long to get its passengers to adapt to checking in online and printing out their own boarding passes (at their own expense in terms of time and ink by the way). Lufthansa and others are now pushing us to use mobile ticketing. The incentive is a swifter passage through check-in and boarding and real time information about your flight. The incentive for the airline is lower costs. Why wouldn't it work?
If we open our minds and can see real benefit from the mobile channel, then as consumers we will use it. Let's not close off opportunity before it even reaches us...
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