U.S. Retailers Tip-Toe Through Mobile Commerce Minefields
Written by Evan Schuman and Fred J. AunAugust 13th, 2009
It began, arguably, with the iPhone two years ago and it hasn't let up: Consumer excitement about today's breed of Web-friendly smartphones is undeniable. So it's reasonable to expect that, by now, most major retailers would be running great mobile commerce sites designed to capitalize on this long-awaited blossoming of the Mobile Web. Reasonable, perhaps, but not real.
Instead, the U.S. M-Commerce space is floundering as merchants drag their feet deploying purchase-capable mobile sites or find their mobile initiatives stalled by an avalanche of obstacles beyond the anticipated mountain of incompatible platforms and mobile browsers. The problems encountered are legion. They include a vacuum of standardization for everything from design, programming, payment processing and even URL naming to fears about carrier conflicts over the types of permitted content and a Catch-22 business strategy about how much, and when, they should embrace M-Commerce.
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-Christine
August 21st, 2009 at 5:42 am
Very well written piece. Thank you. The Amazon experience is amazing and gives them yet another leg up on brick & mortar. By the time traditional retailers figure this out I (and others?) will have already emotionally, habitually, and financially committed themselves to Amazon’s experience for many products, and to your point, leave them where they were in the dialup-to-broadband transition years.