The new face of shopping in Singapore

It was recently reported that December was a good time for shopping in Singapore especially mobile shopping, which saw its busiest shopping period on 19 December 2011.

This is based on figures from PayPal, which attributed the peak in shopping to last-minute shoppers rushing to buy gifts in time for Christmas.

Singaporeans were also using their connectivity to shop globally, with another high for online shopping on 28 November, Cyber Monday elsewhere in the world. 

According to a recent Nielsen report, smartphone penetration in Singapore is reaching the 70 per cent mark, which may be a contributing factor to the growing popularity of online and mobile shopping.

This should be a cause for celebration. It certainly is a sign of the maturity of mobile, and how much it has become a part of life in the garden city

It may also a sign that perhaps Singaporeans have not been as badly hit by the slowdown as expected. For retailers, however, it may be a portent of doom – if not a death knell, then at least a sign that the brick and mortar business is being challenged like never before.

The solution for retailers may be the latest catchphrases to be connected to mobile – mobile finance (m-finance), mobile banking (m-banking), mobile payment (m-payment) and mobile commerce (m-commerce), particularly the latter.

While m-finance covers any financial transaction involving mobile devices, and m-banking and m-payment are simply mobile versions of banking and payment. It is m-commerce that offers the most hope.

M-commerce is less about finance than it is about the entire experience of shopping, and how it is being transformed by mobile. Paying for goods and service through mobile devices is only a small part of it, and m-commerce may be what revitalizes shopping and retail.

In mobile commerce, consumers use their mobile devices along every stage of the purchase journey, using them to discover new products, compare prices, learn more information and otherwise influence their purchasing decisions.

As it is, mobile advertising and marketing keep people informed of new products and services. Mobile search extends that, letting consumers get more information about the products that they are interested in. This is not limited feature-specific information, but also information about the origins of materials, whether the product was manufactured in an environmentally-conscious way, and even reviews, professional and otherwise.

M-commerce can also include comparison shopping, and as location-based services take off, users will be given information about offers and products that are nearby, opportunistically providing them with the chance to experience discovery through their mobile device. 

Paradoxically, all these mobile-enabled online activities may have the effect of driving consumers towards brick and mortar stores instead of going to their online counterparts.

Retailers are already taking steps to make stores more m-commerce friendly, providing more information to in-store customers through QR codes and weblinks that take them to related media and more information. Other schemes to foster loyalty can also be deployed through the mobile channel, by offering electronic coupons and other benefits to shoppers through their mobile devices.

While shoppers may be using their devices to satisfy their need for retail therapy, with proper implementation, it is entirely possible that mobile may be the therapy that will revitalize the retail scene.

Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director, Mobile Marketing Association Asia