Much has been talked about M-Commerce since the early 2000s but it is only with the recent growth in smartphone sales, that the revenue stream has attracted more investment. Research by Martec International showed that investment in M-Commerce for the top 100 UK retailers has grown by 23% in 2010, while sales growth via mobiles, has grown by 85% in the last year. If disposable income for UK households is to shrink by £32bn this year, as the latest IMF report on the UK economy shows, then you can see why a revenue stream that captures part of whatever is left, is so important for UK growth. Let’s take a look at the numbers and also some interesting ways that they have done exactly that.

First let’s start with the facts. According to a Global Consumer Survery from MEF, 82% of UK survey participants used the web on their phone daily. Latest figures from comScore show that a whopping 13.5m people in the UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain used retail sites via their mobile phones between March and May 2011. This represents a 37% increase over the last 12 months.

Research by Econsultancy highlights that 42% of UK shoppers have used their mobile phones to shop and 16% use it specifically to compare prices whilst shopping. Compare this with the fact that only only 7% of UK small businesses have optimised their site for mobile users. That seems like a real under-investment. Putting the UK aside, there are 5.3 billion mobile phone customers around the world and 500 million used their mobiles to go online in the last year. The same research by EConsultancy also showed that mobile payments will be worth $240bn this year and could reach $1trillion by 2014.

eBay’s own research shows that the UK’s growth could be boosted by £19bn by 2021 due to mobile commerce. The growth will of course depend on how quickly the mobile networks can successfully roll-out 4G across the UK. (Although it is due to be rolled out nationally in 2014, local trials are already occurring). Until then, the research shows that the UK shoppers are not completing almost £1.3bn worth of transactions due to mobile coverage being unreliable. Of course, all we can do is wait for those 4G networks to roll-out but in the meantime there are many ways to engage retail consumers through the phone in their pocket.

The opportunity to sell through the mobile platform is increasing all the time. Here are three different examples of how retailers are harnessing this medium.

Tesco’s Virtual Supermarkets.

Tesco recently trailed their virtual supermarket in Seoul’s Hangangjin Station through their Korean subsidiary ‘Home Plus. They literally stuck posters on platform windows and a mobile user could scan the product code and have the products delivered that very same day. The trial was so successful that it created a 140% increase in online sales and a 76% increase in new online shoppers of Home Plus. Is it any wonder that Tesco are now rolling the concept out to other stations in Seoul and then across the rest of South Korea over the next two years.

See the video above to get more of a feel of just how powerful this concept is.

Dominos Pizza Checks-In.

Dominos Pizza rolled out it’s Foursquare promotion last year, allowed any customer near a Dominos takeaway to check-in from their phone and claim a discount. The cost of reaching 200,000 Foursquare users in the UK? Not very much. The return? A huge 9,617 check-ins, with 3,000 new customers across the 600 stores and over 2,800 Facebook posts. A very simple promotion on a very simple platform and all done via mobile, without heavy investment.

Groupon Now

Although still being tested in North America, Groupon Now is the smarter cousin of Groupon. Put simply, you walk through a high-street and the app will ping you offers based on your location. That’s really smart hyper-local shopping right there. The possibility to push goods in this way, in real-time, hasn’t really been capitalised on until Groupon Now came about. The best thing about this? Retailers don’t have to invest in the infrastructure. Groupon have done that. Retailers simply have to invest in powerful promotions and brilliant products.

What about simple text messaging?

M-commerce is not just about selling through a mobile web browser or through an app of course. The simple text message is still the easiest way to reach out. With over 8 trillion text messages predicted to be sent in 2011, it’s definitely not about the potential to spam but rather, the potential to use word of mouth and generate sales directly from your customers talking to each other. To enable that to happen, you need to ensure that your CRM system takes into account text messaging and more importantly, that customers are opting to receive text messages with offers.

So you can see that m-commerce isn’t just about simply selling your products through a mobile phone. The opportunity to bring convenience and therefore to engage retail consumers comes in many different forms. With smartphone sales taking over almost 40% off UK mobile phone sales growth over the last year, it’s now the time to start innovating and harnessing the changing consumption patterns of customers who are constantly on the move.