How Mobile Coupons Are Driving An Explosion In Mobile Commerce

As recently as late 2010, mobile commerce was only 3% of e-commerce. By the end of last year's holiday shopping season, that number had risen to 11%, according to comScore. That's approximately $18.6 billion in consumer spending - and that doesn't even include travel-related purchases, which comScore counts separately.

New mobile merchandising trends — merchandising being the art of selling people products they didn't know they wanted — like mobile catalogs and coupons are helping to drive this explosion.

Thanks in part to this new ecosystem of retail and shopping apps, mobile-generated retail spend could rise to 15% of retail e-commerce by the end of this year.

In a recent report from BI Intelligence, we examine the main reasons why mobile commerce is exploding, dig deeper into the numbers underpinning the explosive growth, and analyze the new mobile merchandising trends — like mobile catalogs and coupons - that are contributing to this growth.

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Here's a brief overview of why retailers and brands are offering mobile coupons:

• Driving digital revenue: Successful coupon campaigns can help e-retailers acquire customers and drive online sales. By 2014 the number of mobile coupon users is expected to increase to 53.2 million a year. At roughly 10%, the redemption rate of mobile coupons crushes that of print coupons, which hovers around 1%.
• Increasing offline sales and foot traffic to physical stores: Effective coupon strategies can lure more consumers into bricks-and-mortar locations. Mobile coupons are also proving to be a path into mobile for large consumer packaged goods brands that have previously shunned the medium.
• Gathering data: Because they are received on phones but often redeemed offline, coupons are a perfect medium for acquiring consumer data. It is a great way for them to collect data on offline purchases and close the mobile-to-offline purchase loop. In a world where the linking of offline and online consumer behavior is still a daunting challenge, that's a valuable resource.
• Building relationships: Coupons are essentially just another channel through which to communicate with consumers. It's useful to think of coupons less as a discounting vehicle, and more a piece of content with an offer appended. If coupons are done right, they will weave a customer and a retailer or brand more tightly together.

In full, BI Intelligence's report on Mobile Commerce:

• Examines the three main reasons why mobile commerce is exploding
• Digs deeper into the numbers underpinning the explosive growth
• Analyzes new mobile merchandising trends — merchandising being the art of selling people products they didn't know they wanted — like mobile catalogs and coupons - that are proving to be successful in driving mobile business

To access BI Intelligence's full reports on Mobile Commerce, sign up for a free trial subscription here.