Mobile Commerce
Last night the Gotham Gal and I went to one of our favorite local spots, sat at the bar, had a glass of wine and a nicely cooked mediterranean seabass. As we sat down, I checked in on foursquare and was alerted that there was a special. Spend $10 or more and get $5 off. So I clicked on the special, loaded it to my card with one click, and when we paid our bill, we got the $5 discount on our credit card bill.
It was simple.
Mobile commerce is simple. Because you have your payment credentials stored in the web service (in this case foursquare). But the same thing could have happened with a direct checkout in the Etsy mobile app. Or in the eBay mobile app.
According to this post on AllThingsD, both eBay and PayPal will transact over $10bn this year on mobile devices. That's a 100% increase over last year.
I've been talking a lot about mobile here at AVC lately. That's because I am seeing the same kinds of things in our portfolio companies that eBay is seeing. Mobile is exploding. And that doesn't just mean mobile browsing, mobile gaming, mobile social networking. It also means mobile commerce.
If you are a transaction driven company, a marketplace, a retailer, or some other transaction oriented business, you had better be investing big time in mobile. Because if you aren't, your competitors surely will be.
