UK Mobile phone shopping to treble in 4 years

The future of shopping is mobile, with handheld devices expected to treble from 13.5 billion pounds to 43 billion pounds over the next four years. This means mobile shopping will account for 66 percent of all purchases.

This may seem a giant leap forward, but the British lag far behind the Americans and Chinese, says research from Google, PayPal UK and OC&C Strategy Consultants. These nations have faster loading sites and multiple mobile shopping platforms, with approximately 250 million Chinese consumers buying goods from messaging app WeChat in 2016.

PayPal UK mobile commerce director Rob Harper said: “Speed is an important factor in any shopping experience, but when it comes to mobile shopping it’s vital. Retailers can reduce the time it takes to browse and select a purchase, but if it takes too long to pay, they may lose that sale. It’s a problem that retailers can easily address.”

UK retailers not fully embracing mobile customer service

Customer service has a long way to go, with only 16 per cent of Britain's top retailers offer customer support through mobile chat versus 41 per cent of the top 100 US sites. Few companies have a presence on messaging platforms despite their growth beyond social networking sites, according to The E&T, an engineering and technology publication.

Comparison shopping is trend that is here to say, with approximately 80 per cent of web retail involving research, transactions and price comparisons through a smartphone by 2020. Retailers who use data analysis to calibrate market pricing we will be one step ahead in this category.

"The next evolution of mobile shopping will reduce the consumer journey even further. Contextual commerce will enable consumers to buy things at the point of discovery - whether that's in an email, on a Pinterest page or in a messenger app - rather than needing to click through to an online shop," Mr Harper said.

"Mobile technology is determining the future of e-commerce, and retailers need to act now to prepare themselves accordingly."

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