The Mobile Web And The Mobile Apps.

Image via CrunchBase

We all know that the future is mobile and this is proved by the escalation in the sales of the smart phones and the boom in the mobile apps. Market. At the same time the internet connectivity, wi-fi accessability and the internet speeds are also improving on an increasing scale so the mobile web is also showing a trend of easy access and usability.

With this scenario the question arises - Should one go for a mobile website or a mobile app.?

There are some critical differences between the two which need to be considered before taking a final decision:

Mobile Apps:

• They are like the software packages designed with a specific purpose and which need to be downloaded and installed for a particular brand smartphone. 
• They need to be made portable for the requisite platform like – Blackberry, iPhone, Android, etc. 
• The apps. In order to be successful and have increased usability it needs to be developed very well keeping the user and the small screen of the handset in mind. 
• You need to come up with improved versions of apps. Regularly keeping in mind the advancements of the handsets being regularly launched in the market. 
• As the browsing technologies improve it is imperative to improve upon the apps. too. 

Mobile Website:

• A website especially designed for mobile devices. 
• This mainly has links to other pages which provide text information about your products and services and the contact details. 
• Unlike the Apps. It does not need any installation and it can be accessed by anyone having an internet connection but the only difference is that it is designed to suit the browsers and screen sizes of mobile devices. 
• Your mobile website can be found on search engines by users once you optimize it. 

But, with the mobile web getting better and better it makes sense to have an optimized website which can have a larger access easily but again there are situations when apps.  may be more viable like for example where downloads and easy payments are the main feature for the users for example  like if you have an iTunes like product which you want users to buy and download on mobile devices.

Identify your need weigh the pros and cons and then decide. But, again to sum it up all sooner or later with the advancements and improvements in technology on both the hardware and software side there will be an integration resuting to websites suiting all devices desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones .

The Advantages of M-Commerce

Author : Wasim Ismail

The wider connection a business can make to their target markets, the higher possible sales they can have. With this, maximizing benefits from the current technology like mobile devices is a big step that industries need to establish.

In connection, the development of Mobile Commerce or M-Commerce gives an opportunity to many businesses to offer flexibility for their customers to have access to their business from devices such as mobile phones.

M-Commerce is the term for making business transactions using mobile devices. There are already several existing M-Commerce applications and services nowadays that have been very helpful to us. Some are mobile banking, location maps, and variety of news, mobile shopping, ticketing and mobile file sharing.

Mobiles are being used more and more on daily basis and its more then just making and receiving a call. Mobile companies are coming up with new features for their smart phones, which offers consumers ease, flexibility and security at the same time. My self I have a Blackberry and an iphone which I use both to run my online business, from sending and receiving emails, online accounts, socialise on Facebook and Twitter and also paying for my shopping so I just need to collect it. I believe if I was to loose my phone, I would be lost, as I would have no communication, besides my wife calling me, I wouldn’t be able to operate my day to day business. Having these features on my phone, saves me hours in a day, as I don’t go home to a full inbox of emails, I don’t need to wait in queues to collect my shopping, as I have already paid for it.

The integration of M-Commerce to a handy device is an immense benefit to all of us, as I have just demonstrated above.

Below are some of these advantages:

Convenience

It is a true convenience to do much from a handy device via M-Commerce. With wherever you are, in just a few clicks on your mobile device, you can already do shopping, banking and download media files.

Flexible Accessibility 

User can be accessible via mobile phones and at the same time be accessible online too through logging on to various mobile messengers like Yahoo and Gtalk and other networking platforms.On the other hand, user may also choose not to be accessible by shutting down his mobile device, which at times can be a good thing.

Easy Connectivity 

As long as the network signal is available, mobile devices can connect and do commerce transactions, mobile to mobile and even mobile to other devices. No need for modem or WI-FI connectivity set up.

Personalization 

Each mobile device is usually dedicated to a specific user, it is personal. You can do whatever you want to your mobile device, modify the wallpaper, change view settings or modify contact information as you send emails or e-payments.

Time Efficient 

Doing M-Commerce transactions do not require the user to plug anything like personal computer or wait for the laptop to load. Just hit the on button of your mobile device and your ready to go.

Despite the small screen, having something in your pocket that can do so much via M-Commerce is really an amazing technology and a great help. E-Commerce business are also making applications for mobile phones which allows users to browse their online products and make payments with couple of buttons.

Is Mobile Commence appealing to you, is this something you would implement into your business, share your thoughts with us regarding mobile e-commerce in the comments below.

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Author Byline:




Wasim Ismail is a web solutions project manager and also an online entrepreneur & blogger at wasimismail.com specializing in online business.

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Ecommerce & Mobile Web 2011 – Time To Take Your Store Online If you Want To Future Proof Your Business

The latest buzz on the gizmo gadget scene is that Smartphone usage is set to increase dramatically with the sales volume forecasted to rise from 174 million in 2009 to 500 million in 2014 with a CAGR of 16.28%.

News is also dominated by headlines like : 

• Smartphone sales jumped by 34 per cent in third quarter of 2010: IDC India 
• "Overall, Indian smartphone sales are expected to touch 5.96 million units by end of 2010," says Naveen Mishra, lead analyst, Mobile Handsets Research, IDC India. 
• "The propensity to adopt feature phones and smartphones is greatest amongst the youth and business executive segments, whose purchase decisions are often driven by peer group influence and workplace usage patterns, as well as larger disposable incomes and willingness to experiment with new technology platforms," Anirban Banerjee, associate vice-president, research, IDC India mentions in an official communiqué. 

The phones are being used more like laptops . The desktops were discarded for laptops and now smartphones are being seen replacing the laptops in increasing numbers.

With more and more Apps. Being available for smartphones the ease with which you email, communicate, connect to social media sites, play games or even surf websites on these phones is making people use the phone more than their laptops.

According to John Shen, the Lab Director at Nokia Research Center, the smartphone of 2015 will go even further: You will be able to link phones together to form a cluster where a group of phones provides PC-like processing capability.

In short the web is becoming more and more mobile . This is backed by the statements made by the people in the online industry during this season on online sales:

• Daily online sales exceeded $1 billion on six days this season, which was twice as many days as a year ago, said Michael McNamara, a vice president at SpendingPulse. The growth meant online sales grabbed a larger share of the season’s total sales, he said. 
• “Today eCommerce accounts for a much larger share of overall retail sales compared to a few years ago. And during this holiday season, it registered double digit growth for 6 out of 7 weeks,” Michael McNamara, vice president of MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse, said in a news release. 

The main point to be noted is that the chidren of today get their first phone by the age of thirteen and are also used to the mode of cashless payments. 

Hence it is very important to note that the teens and twentys of tomorrow will be more accustomed to online buying, if your store is online and has a wide presence on the web then your business has a future else there is a full possibility that you lose the online market share to your competitor who might have gone online and mobile before you.

The web removes the geographic boundaries and offers you the option to target the local and the global markets depending on your online strategies.

As the smart phones become smarter we also have to become smarter to adopt the revolutionary and evolutionary changes and learn how to balance our virtual and real lives at the same time benefitting from the benefits of the online world .