During the “Case Study: How to Build the Best Experience to Drive Conversion and Sales,” session, the PayPal executive discussed how mobile commerce is changing. The executive also discussed how more companies need to think mobile in their everyday initiatives.

“Mobile shopping is happening now,” said Kent Griffin, senior product manager at PayPal, San Francisco.

“It’s a huge opportunity for retailers,” he said. “It’s no longer just good enough to build a mobile site, you have to finish that flow and fulfill what it is that a consumer was looking for.”

Mobile commerce
Mobile commerce is on the rise.

According to Forrester, United States mobile commerce revenue is expected to grow to $10 billion by 2012.

“You need to be thinking about mobile technology as a tool,” Mr. Griffin said.

According to the executive, 60 percent of mobile shoppers are using their device in-store.

Additionally, PayPal claims that it will exceed $3 billion in mobile payment volume in 2011 globally.

“Nearly 10 percent of our 100 million active users are using PayPal via mobile,” Mr. Griffin said. “You have consumers becoming more comfortable and using their mobile devices as companions.”

Smart devices
Smartphones are becoming smarter by the day.

Fifty percent of new phone purchases are smartphones.

“There’s still a lot of feature phones that are being shipped,” Mr. Griffin said. “If you look at the growth rate of smartphones, it’s growing.

“Smartphones are gradually getting better browsers and more people are using the device to shop,” he said.

Although more consumers are using their devices to shop, whether in-store or comparison shopping, Mr. Griffin said that mobile shopping still skews towards iOS devices.

“Still, a lot of volume and transactions is coming from iOS,” Mr. Griffin said. “Additionally, tablets are creating a surprise amount of traffic right now.

“Think about how tablets and mobile devices are really interacting and what your commerce and shopping experience is going to be,” he said. “Follow your customers – enable them to shop as they wish.”

Mobile customer
According to Mr. Griffin, it is important to understand who the mobile shopper is.

“What are they buying?,” Mr. Griffin said. “They really are buying a wide variety of products at different price points.

“Mobile is now a key complement to in-store shopping,” he said. “Owners use smartphones as a shopping companion for product and price comparison.”

Final Take
Rimma Kats is staff reporter on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York