Mobile Commerce: Key Trends For 2016 Mobile commerce will be nearly half of E-commerce by 2018.

With the steady rise in mobile technology in recent years, many businesses have made Mobile commerce, or M-commerce, a top priority.

Whether it's using a tablet in a brick-and-mortar store, or enabling sales through a mobile website, businesses across a wide range of industries are seeking solutions to help them adapt to a mobile-obsessed world. With the steady rise in mobile technology, here is expected m-commerce trends in 2016.

Sure enough, "Mobile commerce will be nearly half of E-commerce by 2018' revealed a headline in a leading magazine recently.

These are phenomenal numbers; so in order to gain an in depth insight into the global reach and influence of M-commerce, we must analyse a report by the investment bank, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. The study estimates that M-commerce sales will reach a staggering $626 billion in 2018.

It is therefore amply evident that M-commerce growth is fast outgrowing that of E-commerce in a ratio of 3:1.

This indicates that web sales only on smartphones and tablets in 2018 will nearly equal web sales on almost all conceivable computing machines from just half-a-decade earlier.

The number of smartphone and/or tablet users making purchases on their mobile devices will increase significantly in the years ahead. A whopping 686 million consumers around the globe will make a purchase on their mobile devices in 2015. This figure is set to increase 21 per cent to 830 million in 2016 and subsequently rise 16 per cent to 961 million in 2017, and peak 13 per cent to 1.09 billion in 2018, according to The Goldman Sachs Group.

Gartner Inc., found in a recent survey that mobile commerce currently generates 22 per cent of digital commerce revenue. The American information technology research and advisory firm predicts that by 2016, 89 per cent of companies will realize that reaching out to their customers through a multi-channel approach will be mandatory, and hence peg customer experience as their primary basis for competition.

Industry experts state that the reality is that focusing innovation on new products—and even new business models—is subject to shrinking periods of competitive advantage. This is because competitors and alternatives abound. To meet this challenge, nearly three-quarters of companies expect to increase technology spending on customer experience in 2015.

Marketers with digital and mobile commerce initiatives need to focus on encouraging the development of cross-functional teams — including IT, sales, customer support and legal — to create seamless path-to-purchase experiences, and post-purchase relationships with consumers who are increasingly using mobile devices to research and purchase products and services.

Mobile marketing teams should investigate how to leverage mobile wallets, with the expected reinvigoration of consumer interest in mobile commerce and payments.

In fact, Gartner reveals that by 2017, U.S. customers' mobile engagement behaviour will drive mobile commerce revenue to 50 per cent of U.S. digital commerce revenue. Mobile commerce will account for 24.4 per cent of overall ecommerce revenues by the end of 2017.

Some sectors will migrate more quickly than others to accepting mobile payments and promoting mobile commerce. For example, big-box retailers may not need to move as quickly as other industries because the in-store experience is still a critical part of their value proposition and the customer experience, making digital and mobile commerce a smaller portion of their overall revenue. Customer experience management will naturally be at the forefront of all these initiatives.

However, new credit card standards will cause a shift in liability for fraudulent transactions in 2015, requiring retailers to update their point-of-sale systems for safer credit card transactions in 2016.