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2011 Online Holiday Shopping Stats Roundup

Kadley Gosselin — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:01:13 +0000

While the growth of eCommerce has been inconsistent due to economic instability and other barriers, the 2011 holiday season has given online shopping a boost across a number of platforms. People are shopping on their phones, tablets, computers—at home, in stores and even at work. This year has been the most active in eCommerce, mCommerce and newly tCommerce (tablet commerce)—with $32 billion spent online this holiday season so far (a 15% increase from last year), according to Comscore.

Holiday Shopping Season Recap

$32 billion spent online (in the first 48 days of the shopping season)
Biggest week: 12/12/11-12/18/11 consumers spent a record $6.3 billion online (Networkworld)
On Thanksgiving, 24% of all online purchases came from a mobile device (the highest share of online shopping between Nov 1 and Dec 18)

Top 3 Days for Online Spending:

Cyber Monday 11/28 – $1.251 billion
Monday 12/5 – $1.178 billion
Green Monday 12/12 – $1.133 billion
(CBR)

Top Motivators

(View the full infographic here)

mCommerce & tCommerce Recap

23.5% of smartphone and tablet owners said their device has been an integral part of their holiday shopping experience so far and they could not shop without it
On Cyber Monday, 10.8% of traffic came from mobile devices (versus 3.9% in 2010)
Mobile sales contributed 6.6% of total eCommerce sales on Cyber Monday (versus 2.3% in 2010), according to Internet Retailer
Mobile sales on Cyber Monday were 113% greater than on Black Friday (mShopper)

Top Categories Shopped via Mobile

eBay reported that the five most popular categories shopped via eBay mobile on Cyber Monday were:

Clothing, shoes and accessories
Computers and networking
Jewelry and watches
Collectibles
Sporting goods

Mobile Payments

PayPal reported a 552% increase in global mobile payment volume this Cyber Monday compared with Cyber Monday 2010
GSI Commerce (eBay’s eCommerce and mCommerce tech provider) reported a 374% increase in U.S. mobile sales this Cyber Monday compared with Cyber Monday 2010

The Typical Mobile Order

52% of all mobile shoppers on Black Friday and Cyber Monday used promotional codes
Average mobile order value: $88
Average order size: close to two items (Internet Retailer)

“Power Shopping”

Tealeaf’s recent social media study showed an interesting trend: “power shopping,” in which people claimed they were not only using their phones to help them shop in-store, but shopping via their mobile devices and shopping in the store at the same time.

Insights

Let there be discounts

As demonstrated in numerous studies, people shop online largely for the discounts. Mobile coupon codes are especially popular (52% of all mobile shoppers used them on Black Friday and Cyber Monday). Moreover, when they’re particularly easy to use, they can inspire a sense of urgency around a purchase which will often seal the deal. Discounts are appreciated in any form: SMS, browser extension tickers, and in email form.

Cash in on big spending days

While mobile devices have enabled a 24-7 shopping culture, people still rely on scheduled sale days, even—sometimes especially—if they’re shopping online. Numbers show that two of the top three days this online holiday shopping season were not spontaneous; Cyber Monday and Green Monday both grossed over $1 billion each. Cash in on shoppers’ heightened interest in retail on these specific days by offering deals that feel exceptional and not-to-miss.

Make it easy

Two of the top cited reasons for shopping online were around convenience: the ease of comparing products online and the ability to ship gifts directly to recipients. People want online shopping to be a smoother process than dodging crowds in stores—from start to finish. Make sure your mobile site (a soon-to-be necessity for eCommerce!) is user-friendly and streamlined, offering one-click-buying options wherever possible. Free shipping is also a huge draw, so make sure gifts can be personalized and shipped right to the recipient.

David Joyce

Augmented Reality + Gestural Control: Transforming the Gaming World and Beyond

Kadley Gosselin — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:49:11 +0000

AR-based games are nothing new – we’ve seen an explosion of AR in gaming from apps to Nintendo 3DS games and we’re still awaiting for the arrival of games which combine motion control and AR to create a truly immersive experience like the one in the concept video below:

A group of developers at the Games and Experimental Entertainment Laboratory (GEElab) at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) are currently in the process of creating a system which combines AR and gestural control to allow for three-dimensional images to be projected in the backseat of a vehicle, controlled by a wireless console. The system could serve many purposes from new gaming experiences for passengers, educational resources for drivers, or even transform the car into a virtual office.

Dr. Steffen Walz, the director of GEElab presented the Audi-sponsored research at the Audi Urban Future Summit. The team is going to begin work on the prototype in the near future combining gestural interaction, a 3D holographic display and transparent windows as the interface.

Aurasma, a new AR technology by Autonomy, also integrates motion control. The app recognizes hand gestures giving users the ability to interact with virtual content. So far it has been used by GQ Magazine to create interactive pages but the possibilities are endless with the ability to track moving objects – suggesting possibilities for retail and business workflows with the ability to recognize images, objects and text in the real world and in turn deliver relevant digital content.

Header image courtesy of SMI Eye Tracking
Body image courtesy of The Sydney Morning Herald

Mediating Mediums: Using Augmented Reality to Shape the World Around Us

Kadley Gosselin — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 22:17:34 +0000

Personalization has become one of the biggest trends in product development today. People want everything personalized, from their sneakers to the voice on their GPS to their software’s UI.

Greg Tran, a student at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, recently won the thesis prize for his project, Mediating Mediums, which applies personalization to the built environment around us – through the application of AR.

Tran’s project explains that the integration of AR in the design process of built spaces could revolutionize our experiences inside them. Not only could we personalize our physical surroundings to improve our experiences aesthetically, but the use of information could allow every experience to be optimized – the layout of buildings could be dependent on your schedule, for example. Using Wi-Fi as a framework could enable every visitor in a building to have personalized user access, controlling what they see and where they can go. AR would also allow for improved social interaction within spaces; connection and collaboration could become much easier without the restraints of time and presence.

Mediating Mediums – The Digital 3d [Short Version] from Greg Tran on Vimeo.

While this sort of project may be a bit ahead of its time, there are already many current developments pushing us toward this becoming a reality, from digital AR-based graffiti for disaster relief to retail opportunities with packaging.

Header image courtesy of Carmzz.

VIDEO: The Shape-Shifting Future of the Mobile Phone

John-Paul Kwasie — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 18:29:47 +0000

Mobile devices and applications are being designed to mirror or emulate our interactions with the physical world, but can we truly satisfy our tactile senses with these digital technologies?

In his recent TED talk, Fabian Hemmert proposes that redesigning mobile technology to make digital content more “graspable” would change the way that we interact with our machines. He calls for rethinking the mass, shape, and intuitive characteristics of mobile devices to make interactions with them (and their content) more intuitive. These new ideas will bolster the virtual offerings of the digital world with the physical qualities of the material world. As Hemmert displays in his presentation, a device with a shifting weight will make handheld navigation easier and more engaging, while a device with a motorized, vibrating “heartbeat” will animate mobile devices, giving users better insight about when to check for new and exciting activity.

Image courtesy of DoNotLick’s Flickr, (cc) some rights reserved.

Mobile Payment Platforms Streamline P2P Exchanges

John-Paul Kwasie — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 16:02:38 +0000

Financial companies continue to develop mobile payment systems that can be used for everyday consumer transactions, answering users’ growing expectations for mobile to improve a range of life experiences—especially those around money management and exchange. While these financial platforms are developing in tandem with new technologies to change the future of the traditional banking experience, they are being met with some consumer indifference in the developed world. It is increasingly apparent that opportunity lies, and is perhaps contingent upon, the development of mobile payment services tailored for peer-to-peer (P2P) exchanges, in both developed and developing nations.

Here’s three ways of thinking about the opportunity:

Develop mobile payment offerings around familiar social constructs

By building mobile payment platforms around individual’s personal networks, companies can merge mobile payment transactions with real-world interpersonal experiences – playing off our increased comfort with social networking and the expanding possibilities for a “mobile wallet.” (It’s worth noting, as some have pointed out, that banks are in the business of privacy and security, which is inherently at odds with socializing financial information—so there may be some unique hurdles or drawbacks to overcome.) Venmo is a P2P-centered payment service with a contact list that bears resemblance to Twitter’s. Venmo’s users link their accounts to credit or debit card accounts, and use the service as a transferal tool—enabling them to pay, invoice, and reimburse their contacts. AMEX’s Serve along with MoneyMessenger both offer their own versions of this “bill splitting” capability. Venmo gives the ubiquity of mobile payment a practical, interpersonal context by initially focusing on facilitating small-scale P2P transactions with “co-workers, roommates, and dinner buddies,” establishing a stepping stone to greater adoption of mobile payment across contexts.

Reduce friction with features that facilitate P2P money exchanges

American Express’s Serve is an account-based service that offers users a streamlined payment process for mobile and online purchases. It provides a variety of payment options all from the same account; for example, users can make P2P transfers online or via mobile, use the Serve card at stores, and make online transactions. Versatility and ease of use are two of Serve’s key traits, and the company seeks to “encourage a broad cross-section of people using its platform.” By partnering with platforms like Serve, businesses have an opportunity to expand their P2P offerings, which in turn creates beneficial new conveniences for their customers. For example, Ticketmaster has partnered with Serve to create a platform that removes some of the social friction that goes along with collecting reimbursement money from friends; one person can purchase a number of tickets for a group of people and Serve will auto-invoice multiple individuals and collect payments towards the tickets. Additionally, a strategic alliance with Payfone will offer Serve users the ability to link their mobile phones with payment accounts, “delivering a seamless payment solution” and simplifying the checkout process.

Think beyond money: enable other kinds of P2P exchanges

The Web facilitates the coordination of many people’s assets in intelligent ways, and mobile allows real-time access to that information, making the sharing of objects and spaces (not just money) a viable and increasingly convenient option. Latitude’s own The New Sharing Economy study found that 85% of participants believe that Web and mobile technologies will play a critical role in building large-scale sharing communities for the future. For example, P2P transit is a hot opportunity space for mobile innovation—coordinating the sharing of cars, rides, bikes, and so on. Daimler’s car2gether is a ride-sharing service piloted in Ulm, Germany that matches available rides with riders (linked with information from their online profiles) in real-time, via a smartphone application. Spride Share is a San Francisco-based P2P car-sharing service who founders think “your next car should be a cell phone.”

People are transacting everything from money to kids’ clothes to textbooks to power tools with their peers, and coordinating increasingly more of these exchanges through apps and the mobile Web. Swap.com is a service that allows people to trade books, games, movies, and so on.. Recently, they released an iPhone app so that people can coordinate swaps on-the-go, and scan barcodes of items to add to their list.

Swap iPhone App Screenshot

Header image courtesy of shizhao’s Flickr, (cc) some rights reserved; video courtesy of nitesher; screenshot courtesy of Swap.

Mobile Information-Sharing Creates Opportunity in the Developing World

John-Paul Kwasie — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 16:06:18 +0000

As in the developed world, mobile expansion in the developing world enables users to access information about the market, make better business decisions, and distribute resources more intelligently. In developing countries, this type of information could be absolutely essential to solving the economic challenges that plague them—not to mention, presenting new solutions and opportunities.

Mobile devices can be used to more efficiently coordinate market activity and communication, to the benefit of both local businesses and customers. By using mobile connectivity to share supply information and availability in the developing world, local businesses can reduce cost and waste expenditure, and ensure the maximization of profit. Beyond fostering stronger local business, this can lower the prices of goods and services purchased by people in the developing world too. “Access to [mobile] communications boosts incomes and makes local economies far more efficient,” explains Businessweek. “A group of poor fishermen in the Indian state of Kerala increased their profits by an average of 8% after they began using mobile phones to find out which coastal marketplaces were offering the best prices for sardines. Yet consumer prices for fish dropped 4% because the fishermen no longer had to throw away the catch they couldn’t sell when they sailed into a port after all the buyers had left.”
Individuals can receive valuable “airtime compensation” by sharing information via mobile devices. A recent InfoDev study, Knowledge Map of the Virtual Economy, explains that crowdsourcing and microwork, instances of companies paying workers to complete unskilled tasks via the Web, could provide users with direct payment in exchange for Web-enabled phone usage. While some companies utilize it for market research about emerging markets and mass data entry, paid crowdsourcing can be used to yield valuable information for locals as well. For instance, NextDrop uses paid crowdsourcing to circulate clean water information directly from water utility companies to local residents, paying participants $.20USD in exchange for providing notifications and updates of clean water availability with others.
Access to mobile promotes knowledge-sharing that can benefit the developing world. The development of Web-enabled technology and infrastructure invites more participants to share ideas and communicate information; the shared efforts of many citizens are often more effective in aggregate than what government or private agencies working alone could achieve. For example, Ushahidi (a Knight News Challenge winner) is an open-source platform originally developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008, providing invaluable information to relief workers. Ushahidi employs mobile crowdsourcing as a crisis management tool; users communicate first-hand reports of violence and natural disasters via their mobile devices (SMS, Twitter, email and the Web).

What is the Ushahidi Platform? from Ushahidi on Vimeo.

This information can be pivotal in preventing further violence in war-torn countries, serving as democratic checks for political leaders, and pinpointing the areas that are in need of immediate relief following catastrophe.

Increased mobile connectivity offers the exchange of information that, at times, can supersede immediate economic value. As mobile devices become increasingly popular in the developing world, they bring not only the opportunity to increase the efficiency of local economies and the quality of life for citizens, but they also bring new avenues for participating in the overarching mobile economy.

Header image courtesy of whiteafrican’s Flickr, (cc) some rights reserved.

What Developed Countries Should Know About the Mobile Economy in Africa

John-Paul Kwasie — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 02:09:31 +0000

A report released today by IT News Africa states that the mobile market in Africa is steadily growing, and that such growth presents a wealth of opportunities for mobile developers. In fact, Africa has overtaken Western Europe in mobile connections.

The report underscores the rapid rise of mobile devices and connectivity in the developing world. A number of African countries are using mobile technology in innovative and integral ways, outpacing more developed nations in the sophistication and application of mobile solutions. These countries are changing not only how they interact with other developing nations, but also more developed countries—creating new opportunities for Africa to connect with the larger world economy. A news correspondent for The Economist offers a take on the role of mobile connectivity in Africa and what it means for the mobile economy and for the continent:

Connectivity [in Africa] is a given: it is coming and happening and spreading in Africa whether or not factories get built or young people find jobs. Culture is being formed online as well as on the street: for the foreseeable future, the African voice is going to get louder, while the voice of ageing Europe quietens.

Two possibilities could arise from an increase of mobile usage and a growth of the developing world’s mobile economy:

Usage of mobile technology to develop solutions to the problems intrinsic to the developing world.
An increased interest in improving traditional infrastructure in order to provide further mobile services.

An example of such a solution is M-Pesa, a mobile payments service offered by Safaricom. The company recently partnered with Western Union to expand their ability to provide fast, simplified mobile banking for Kenyans. In a country where bank accounts are rare, M-Pesa builds off of the concept of the “digital wallet” to hold and transfer Kenyans’ money securely. “M-PESA is aimed at mobile customers who do not have a bank account, typically because they do not have access to a bank or because they do not have sufficient income to justify a bank account,” explains InnovationAfrica, The banking works through SMS technology, which is fast, simple, and practical for users who do not have Web access, and accessible for users who are transporting money across borders. “The service will likely benefit thousands of Kenyans working abroad,” writes Mobile Payment Magazine. “According to the Central Bank of Kenya, Kenyans living outside their home country sent US$642 million home in 2010—up from the US$609 million sent home in 2009.”

The M-Pesa example shows that the growth of mobile technology can aid in gradually integrating the developing world into the developed world and, as Ledgard proposes, mobile activity is not contingent upon a secure infrastructure or traditional economy; rather, all that is necessary is a stable access point. Africa is a prime example showing that with a rise in mobile technology comes the gradual development of a connected culture; a new context for the usage of services like mobile payments and a new area of growth for the mobile economy.

Header image courtesy kiwanja’s Flickr, (cc) some rights reserved. Body image courtesy of sociate’s Flickr, (cc) some rights reserved.

NFC & the Mobile Economy: a Long Range of Opportunities for Short-Range Communication

John-Paul Kwasie — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 00:44:00 +0000

“It is a powerful catalyst—a highly stable wireless connectivity technology—that provides intuitively simple and safe two-way interactions between electronic devices. It has the potential to make almost all wireless technologies easy enough so that everyone—even the non-technical—can use them.”

Near Field Communication and the NFC Forum: The Keys to Truly Interoperable Communications, nfc-forum.org, October 2007, p.3

Near Field Communication (NFC) is arguably the next big technology in the mobile world. NFC’s short-range communication, the ability to transmit information between two devices over very short distances, has the potential to revolutionize the mobile economy. NFC’s value stems from its three primary uses (as outlined in an article by ReadWriteWeb’s Sarah Perez):

Card Emulation Mode, where the NFC-enabled device can utilize banking and payment services (e.g. serving as a “mobile wallet”)
Reader Mode, where the device can read tags, barcodes, and other embedded information
P2P Mode where two devices can exchange or send information to each other (e.g. the “Bump” app where users can trade contact information by touching their phones together)

Banks and financial groups have already recognized the clear opportunity inherent in NFC’s Card Emulation ability as it provides streamlined methods of making and receiving payments. Industry experts are saying that 2011 will be “the year of NFC” and the first quarter has already seen companies and partnerships announcing their innovative usage of the technology or their intent to explore development. Microsoft is rumored to be bringing NFC to this year’s Windows phones, American Express is using it with its Serve platform as a digital transaction tool, and Samsung and Visa hope to showcase it at the 2012 Olympics. One common goal looming on the industry horizon is the symbolic creation of the “mobile wallet:” the electronic replacement of physical credit cards, debit cards, transit passes, and electronic keys.

Visa sticks NFC into a microSD card

The widespread adoption of NFC will take time. Concerns are that initial skepticism will come from merchants who are hesitant to invest the money, time, and trust necessary for the system to work. Following a panel at the CITA 2011 conference, Mobile Commerce Daily reports that while they concede a major hurdle will be convincing merchants to adopt NFC, industry leaders are adamant that it will be key in the future of mobile technology.

“NFC has definitely hit the inflection point, and we are putting everything behind it to make sure it succeeds,” said David Talach, vice president of global product management at VeriFone Systems Inc., Sacramento, CA. “What I am most bullish about is NFC—if you layer on NFC, you layer on a whole new set of opportunities.”

“It has hit critical mass in terms of interest and momentum,” he said. “It is redefining what the checkout does—with NFC, the checkout is coming alive.”

A deeper look at NFC reveals that the true opportunities of the technology lie beyond payment in the innovations in Reader Mode and P2P Mode—that is, in the creative integration of multiple modes simultaneously. For example, Amazon is rumored to be interested in NFC, both in using Card Emulation as a payment tool but also using the Reader capability as a comparative shopping tool. In San Francisco, Wells Fargo is testing MicroSD-embedded cases for Blackberries and iPhones that, in tandem with a Wells Fargo app, enable the devices to use NFC. The application also includes a switch that toggles NFC on or off.

This is intriguing for two reasons:

The cases can enable older phones to adapt new technology; facilitating the spread of NFC and creating the opportunity for idea development that does not require users to purchase a new device.
The “off” switch can empower users by enabling them to opt out of using NFC if they have reservations or concerns for privacy. As a corollary, by keeping NFC on at their leisure, users will voluntarily be building and bolstering the trust necessary to make the technology gain a foothold and grow.

While some of it is speculative, the news stories do point to the fact that through 2011, we will see NFC develop and shape the future of our mobility; whether the shaping occurs through specific uses such as payment methods or as part of a general shift towards different new uses for our mobile devices. If companies and developers can truly recognize the opportunity that is lying in the Reader and P2P capabilities of the technology, the technology will truly be worth the hype surrounding it.

Header image courtesy of Thomas Angermann, (cc) some rights reserved. Body image courtesy of Thomas Purve, (cc) some rights reserved.

Cartoon: “App Show & Tell”

Jessica Reinis — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:59:29 +0000

Today’s cartoon is inspired by our Latitude/ReadWriteWeb open innovation study on kids & Web technology. Click here to participate in the study. (You can read more about Latitude’s open innovation privacy policy here.)

Cartoon by Jessica Reinis.

Jessica is an analyst for Latitude Research with proclivities for creative doodling and human-centric technology projections. She is the leading analyst on the current Latitude 42, an innovation study on Web technology featuring children ages 12 and under (read more on this study). Currently, her other focus areas include digital content access and new payment models, as well as next-gen advertising.

Header image courtesy of Dyanna, (cc) some rights reserved.

The Promise of Augmented Reality: What to Expect

Jack Graham — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:00:04 +0000

This post is guest-authored by Jack Graham as part of a series on augmented reality.

Part 1 – The Stuff Augmented Realities are Made of
Part 2 – Augmented Reality Steps Out of the Lab

Augmented reality is what the Industry Standard calls a “disruptive technology.” What this means is that certain types of organizations need to adapt to AR quickly, before those who have assimilated this technology eat their lunches.

If you’re a travel guide company, search engine, directory, local shop, or restaurant, AR has the potential to either benefit or damage your business.

The Risks

One is safety. If you’re walking down the street looking into augspace with your phone, you lose your peripheral vision. The first time I tried playing Spec Trek, I was having a great time — until I stepped into a very real pile of dog leavings while chasing down an AR ghost.

AR apps that allow public tagging of buildings leave homeowners and businesses vulnerable to harassment and vandalism via augmented reality sticky notes. And AR apps that do facial recognition threaten to further erode our privacy, taking away our ability to remain anonymous in public places.

The Benefits

The future of AR holds a great deal of promise. Better devices, such as heads up display glasses, are already appearing and will give augspace even greater immediacy, freeing the user from having to pull out their phone and look through it. (They should also reduces one’s chances of stepping in dog poop while chasing invisible spectres).

Gestural and wearable interfaces will let us click on an object or building in a scene and bring up information on it, or allow complex interactions with phantom objects (a la Tony Stark’s engineering software in the Iron Man movie).

Industry standards for tagging places and objects with AR content will allow apps to access public AR channels. And educational AR apps capable of recognizing parts in a machine from the scene in the user’s camera could be used to coach workers through assembling and maintaining complex devices.

Emergent AR Technologies

Two research projects generating tantalizing near term results are MIT’s SixthSense and a project at Cambridge University to create better outdoor positional tracking for camera-based apps. SixthSense is a wearable device (a pendant) created by MIT’s Fluid Interfaces lab.

Built on top of a cell phone, it uses the phone camera to recognize objects and a tiny projector to project information back onto the object. It could project information about a person it recognizes onto their chest or the status of your flight onto your scanned boarding pass. SixthSense is particularly interesting because it’s in the small class of working AR applications that don’t display their output on a device monitor of some type.

The Cambridge University effort addresses a more abstract problem: determining the exact position of a camera in relation to the scene it’s showing. For an example of why this is important, imagine a developer who wants put a block of color over a building in a navigational app to highlight it as the user’s destination. The block of color will need to change according to rules of perspective as the user moves closer to the building, or it won’t match up with the image of the building coming through the camera. The Cambridge team figured out how to generate a 3D model of a building using image recognition on the 2D camera picture. At the same time, the device collects GPS data. It can then distort the model — and any graphics tied to it — as the camera moves.

Future Implications for AR

In the next few years, we’ll see the emergence of open standards for building and tagging augspace, search engines selling premium AR placement, location based AR audio, and spam (along with spam filters). Farther out, augmented reality will completely transform how we compute. It will allow us to put a user-defined skin on reality, radiate and interact with personal area social networks, and wear graphics like clothing. It will enhance our intelligence, providing instant information on anything we look at and cueing us if we forget a name or a face. It will erase the boundary between the real and the digital, turning the world around us into a search engine whose results are displayed on thin air.

Jack Graham is Senior Interactive Producer at Vantage Travel in Boston. In his spare time he writes sci-fi, designs games, and habitually calls his Android phone a “jeejah.” His blog, which is about interactive marketing, social media, and emerging technologies, can be found by turning on your phone’s GPS and looking through the camera at: jackgraham.net/exmachina/

Header image courtesy of leonardlow’s flickr, (cc) some rights reserved.