Mobile Payments: Key E-commerce Trends in 2016

Featured article by Peter Karaszi, Author and Trend Techie

E-commerce continues its rapid growth and ever shifting shape. In 2016, we are likely to see a stronger focus on customer experience and personalization, according to some e-commerce experts that IT Briefcase has spoken to. Mobile payments and the technological infrastructure will also become more important as differentiators between e-commerce winners and losers in the coming year.

“The customer experience is key for successful online business in 2016,” said Marcus Fredriksson, founder of Nordic Etail, a Nordic group that invests in and manages e-commerce stores in a broad range of verticals with growth potential. “The trend is shifting from offering ‘a list of products’ to emulating high quality physical retail stores The e-commerce players understand that the purchase does not end with the payment; Delivery and after sales must be of highest class.”

“As the customers assume ever more power, the online business must be customer driven. Customers increase their control over the e-commerce store: its range, content (reviews, Q&As, Instagram images etc), inlcuding the presentationen of the e-commerce (popular products are offered first, top lists are “cool”, “most blogged products” etc).”

Torkel Hallander, CEO of Scandinavian tyre and rim online retailer Bythjul.com agrees:

”Web sites, web shops, e-mailings and other forms of digital marketing are becoming ever more targeted. The presentation and the offering are becoming more designed for individual customer preferences, behaviors and purchasing power – all in order to maximize sales, profit margins and customer satisfaction.”

Mr. Hallander also mentions omni-channel as a still strenghtening trend: ”Consumers are interested in physical contact with the products on offer. Virtual and physical stores supplement each other and strengthen the brand. Retailers who can deliver a compelling shopping experience in all channels will be the winners in 2016.”

Continuous technological development with multiple choices

Sven Hammar, CEO of Apica System, a provider of technology for testing, monitoring, and optimizing the performance of cloud and mobile applications, believes there will be a stronger focus on the underlying technology of e-commerce sites in 2016:

“Players in e-commerce today have far more choices of infrastructure for their digital market places, with migration to the cloud and especially hybrid platforms, which sets higher demands on testing and quality assurance of the e-commerce platforms for optimal reliability. Customers are becoming more discerning and do not accept technically substandard or slow sites.”

“Technical performance will become a stronger competitive advantage. With the same stock on offer and price as the (often) only distinguishing factor, the performance of the e-commerce platforms will become increasingly important: Google ranks companies mainly on response times, and the winners are the ones who end up on page one for services and products of similar nature,” concludes Mr. Hammar.

Mr. Hallander, Bythjul.com, also mentions the saturated price race as a reason for ecommerce players to find other differentiators than price: “For commodities with easy distribution, which can be easily compared with each other and without the need for physical connection, the transparency will create a winner takes it all situation.“

Mr. Hammar believes that another technology trend will create new opportunities: “APIs – how different application programs can communicate with a specific software – creates great opportunities for e-commerce businesses. Internet connects people and computers, while the API uses hardware and software to exchange information through these contacts. API creates new opportunities for e-commerce businesses to generate new revenue streams by improving the performance of the platform and provides customers with a more complete site with multiple products and services based on individualized data.“

“Adapt the mobile e–commerce sites to payments“

Christoffer Tyrefors, CEO of Cykelkraft.se, Sweden’s largest online bicycle shop, mentions the migration towards m-commerce and the need for easy and secure mobile payments and the strongest trend in 2016:

“Last year, the e-commerce sites became adapted to mobile purchases. The next step is to adapt the mobile e-commerce sites to payments (Square, PayPal, Klarna etc) with notifications et al. Typical mobile communication, i.e. text messages, push notifications etc are trending.”

Peter Karaszi is an economist, author and communications expert who has specialized in technology trends.