Today sees the launch of Best Buy's new mobile site. It's great to see a major retailer building a mobile site that rivals the shopping experience on their main site.
With 38% of people already using their mobiles as a shopping tool - and the number purchasing through mobiles steadily increasing - Best Buy have timed this launch perfectly to mirror changing consumer habits.
Social commerce is one of the most effective ways of increasing customer loyalty - and efforts to increase customer loyalty have a far better ROI than attempts to win new customers. But not all social commerce tools are equally effective at this or equally suitable for all businesses and customer types.
One of the biggest recent trends in social commerce is the increased consumer demand for ratings of retailer and brand customer service. 86% of UK shoppers now rely on reviews from their peers to confirm their choice of retailer and brand, according to American Express research. This shift in consumer behaviour offers retailers and brands the chance to make their customer service a real sales driver.
The mcommerce market will be worth £73 billion by 2015ABI Research, 2011
Mobile traffic to retailers' sites has grown 163% since 2010ComScore, 2011
I don't think I need to say much more than that.
F-commerce may be getting all the attention at the moment but, when you leave aside the hype, there's much more potential in m-commerce - not least because mobile shopping is a better fit for more businesses in more markets.
Multichannel innovation is not normally associated with supermarkets. But Tesco are doing a great job of disproving this stereotype with a range of new ideas to increase the touchpoints across which they interact with consumers, particularly focusing on mobile.