Nowadays, we just can’t imagine life without a cell phone, can we? For example, if we suddenly plan to catch a movie with our friends, all we need to do is book the tickets using the mobile booking feature. Earlier, we would have to rush to the hall, stand in line, and then get the tickets, but with the advent of technology as mentioned above, the entire process has become quick and convenient. Mobile payments have proved to be hugely beneficial for people to pay their mobile bills, clear their credit card payments, and so on. Thus it is evident how mobile commerce is going through a major growth spurt.

OpenMarket has recently released a report that says almost every company will be investing in the mobile market in the year 2011. This is because of the change in mindset of the consumers. Mobile commerce was earlier looked upon as a bonus but it has now become a necessity to draw in more and more customers for any business. People are no longer shying away from technology, which is why merchants are offering user-friendly payment systems to rope in more customers who will want to buy products using their smartphones.

A vast portion of the market still remains unexplored, so you can expect that this fact will be taken into account in the year 2011. Let us take a quick look at the opportunities and challenges for mobile commerce in 2011:

• According to Matthew Poepsel of Gomez, who is the vice president of performance strategies, retailers should definitely look at establishing their presence on the mobile web. Gomez has conducted many surveys and with the help of their most recent Retail User Experience (UX) Index has reported that mobile web is way below the PC based web when it comes to performance. Mobile web is lagging way behind in terms of performance and this is one factor that might hamper its growth. Mobile shopping applications might be able to draw in customers but if the website does not offer a complete experience then people will not shop. Therefore, all the sites should be optimized to give the customers an on-the-go experience.

• Did you ever imagine that phones will become equivalent to credit cards? The main challenge here is to streamline the process, which is indeed quite difficult with numerous carriers in the market. However, organizations like OpenMarket have taken the initiative to deal with this problem by allowing merchants to conduct transactions across different wireless carriers. In 2011, factors like revenue share distribution, transparency in modes of payment, and legal risk need to be addressed immediately.

• When retailers are looking to implement a successful mobile strategy, they can’t choose to ignore the performance of mobile apps that they use to reach out to customers, by offering discounts and coupons.

The challenges and opportunities for mobile commerce

go hand in hand. As the drawbacks will be overcome, the market will widen further. Let us wait and watch what happens next!