Introduction To M Commerce

Introduction:
• Buying and selling products and services through mobile devices are the
new trend.
• A housewife can purchase her kitchen appliances from the comfort of her
living room, a busy person can order lunch from office, one can use mobile
platforms to sell goods and services − all with a few clicks.
What is M-Commerce?
• Mobile commerce or simply M-Commerce means engaging users in a buy
or sell process via a mobile device.
• For instance, when someone buys an Android app or an iPhone app, that
person is engaged in m-commerce.
• There are a number of content assets that can be bought and sold via a
mobile device such as games, applications, ringtones, subscriptions etc.
 M-commerce (mobile commerce) :
“Buying and selling of goods and services through wireless handheld devices such as
smartphones and tablets.”
Information services, which include the delivery of financial news, sports figures and traffic updates
to a single mobile device.
Mobile Commerce (M-Commerce)
• Very simply put M-commerce entails the e-commerce transactions done with a mobile
phone.
• M-commerce is the use of mobile phones to conduct any type of business transaction.
• It takes the help of the e-commerce background and WAP technology.

Use of wireless technology (WAP):

• To conduct sales of goods.
• Provide services.
• Make payments and other financial transactions, the exchange of information etc. is the
basis of mobile commerce.
[WAP- Wireless Application Protocol]
• De facto worldwide standard for providing Internet communications and
advanced telephony services on digital mobile phones, pagers, personal
digital assistants, and other wireless terminals − WAP Forum.
• WAP stands for Wireless Application Protocol.
Dictionary definition of these terms are as follows −
• Wireless − Lacking or not requiring a wire or wires pertaining to radio
transmission.
• Application − A computer program or piece of computer software that is
designed to do a specific task.
• Protocol − A set of technical rules about how information should be
transmitted and received using computers.
WAP :
-Standardized technology for cross-platform.
-Distributed computing very similar to the Internet's combination of
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) + Hypertext Transfer Protocol
(HTTP), except that it is optimized for:
• low-display capability
• low-memory
• low-bandwidth devices, such as personal digital assistants (PDAs),
wireless phones, and pagers.
• WAP is designed to scale across a broad range of wireless networks
like GSM, IS-95, IS-136, and PDC.
Who is behind WAP?
-Result of joint efforts taken by companies teaming up in an industry group called
WAP Forum (www.wapforum.org).
• On June 26, 1997, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, and Unwired Planet took the
initiative to start a rapid creation of a standard for making advanced services
within the wireless domain a reality.
• In December 1997, WAP Forum was formally created and after the release of the
WAP 1.0 specifications in April 1998, WAP Forum membership was opened to all.
• WAP Forum now has over 500 members and represents over 95 percent of the
global handset market.
• Companies such as Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson are all members of the forum.
• Objective of the forum
To create a license-free standard that brings information and telephony services to
wireless devices.
• M-commerce is actually a rapidly growing sector of e-commerce.

• Nearly 70% of the online transactions that occur in India happen from mobile
phones.

• Globally it is a 700 billion dollar industry.

 Applications of M-commerce
• Other than the straightforward m-commerce transactions of buying and selling of goods and services,
they have so many applications.
• Let us take a look at a few examples:
1.Mobile Banking:
• Using a mobile website or application to perform all your banking functions.
• It is one step ahead of online banking and has become commonplace these days.
For example:
in Nigeria, the majority of banking transactions happen on mobile phones.
2.Mobile Ticketing and Booking:
• Making bookings and receiving your tickets on the mobile.
• Digital ticket or boarding pass is sent directly to your phone after you make the payment from it.
• Even in India now IRTC and other services provide m-ticketing services.
3.E-bills:
• Includes mobile vouchers, mobile coupons to be redeemed and even loyalty
points or cards system.

4.Auctions:
• Online auctions having now been developed to be made available via mobile
phones as well.

Stock Market Reports and even stock market trading over mobile applications.
Advantages of M-commerce:

• It provides a very convenient and easy to use the system to conduct business
transactions.
• Has a very wide reach-
A huge part of the world’s population has a mobile phone in their pocket. So the
sheer size of the market is tremendous.
• Helps in businesses target customers according to their location, service
provider, the type of device they use and various other criteria.
• Good marketing tool
• Costs of the company also reduced :
-Due to the streamlined processes, now transaction cost, low carrying cost and low
order processing cost as well.
 Disadvantages of M-commerce
• Existing technology to set up an m-commerce business is very expensive.
- It has great start-up costs and many complications arise.

• In developing countries, the networks and service providers are not reliable
- It is not most suitable for data transfer.
• Issue of security
-Many concerns about the safety of the customer’s private information.
-And the possibility of a data leak is very daunting.
What are the differences between e-commerce and
m-commerce?
Some of the differences are as below :
• E-commerce came into existence in the 1970s Whereas, M-commerce was
invented later during the 1990s.
• Electronic commerce has a narrower reach than M-commerce, due to a
large number of mobile users globally.
• E-commerce is generally a less costly method:
- Set up of the website and the use of the internet is both relatively cheaper
methods.
- M-commerce, on the other hand, is more expensive due to the creation of
the mobile app and the need to use cellular data (for the customers)
How does M-Commerce Work?

• Let’s look at some of the points that you need to remember as a business, while
engaging in m-commerce :
1.Decide Where to Sell :
• Before you sell your products or services via m-commerce, you need to decide what type
of outlets or stores suit your business best.
• Let us suppose you have created ringtones − you can sell them either at specific third-
party outlets or to independent aggregators who charge you a commission for the
service.
• You can also sell your ringtones on mobile stores or app stores such as Android
marketplace or App store (Apple).
• These stores are frequently visited by many buyers and hence ideal for making sales
easily and efficiently.
• Finally, you can also sell via your own mobile store by creating a mobile website
specifically for sales or as by setting-up an m-commerce page on your main website
2. Set up Mobile Billing :
• To set up your merchant account.
• For instance, you can use third-party services such as PayPal- ideal for small
businesses or also large companies.
• A third-party application makes it really easy for you as well as your customers to
make the payments, but then they do charge commission on the transaction.
Or
• Set-up your own billing and payment gateway, but make sure that you make it
really easy for users.
• Mobile users do not use keyboards or a mouse so make sure that the design of
your m-commerce site is intuitive, with easy navigation tools and the right
display sizes.
• Basically, make your m-commerce site optimized for Smartphone users.
Mobile Users − Statistics :
• As per the survey carried out by Google in partnership with Ipsos OTX MediaCT
on 5000+ users, 89% use smartphones throughout the day.
• Out of this −
• 89% stay connected
• 82% research and read news
• 75% navigate
• 65% entertain
• 45% manage and plan
• 70% uses mobile devices to make purchase
• 82% notice ads on mobile devices of which around 42% go ahead and click on ads
• Advertisers should use location-based services to be easily accessible.
• Owning a responsive website is a must now.
 You can use the following methods to
understand more about your mobile
audience −

Measure user recordings − Here every

Ways to Know gesture of user is captured. This makes it
easy to trap users’ behavior.
Your Mobile
Audience Heat maps give you a breakdown of users’
action.

Real-time In-App analytics give you an

insight into the user’s psyche and all the
actions they do on their screens.
Mobile Marketing Technology & Reach
mobile devices :In such a scenario, every business person willing to practice the mobile
marketing technique has to be aware about the following top 5 ways in which mobile technologies have
changed the way users interact.
• https://www.tutorialspoint.com/mobile_marketing/mobile_advertisi
ng_ecosystem.htm
• Heatmaps -graphical representation of data that uses a system of
color-coding to represent different values.
• Heatmaps are used in various forms of analytics but are most
commonly used to show user behaviour on specific webpages or
webpage templates.