The importance of mobile devices in Brazilian e-commerce has grown at a fast rate over the past years. Both online merchants and payment service providers therefore recognize the need to give m-commerce a major role in their overall strategy. In addition to offering a responsive website, a frictionless mobile payment process is essential to avoid frustrating mobile buying experiences. Furthermore, local alternative payment methods, such as boleto bancário, are not mobile friendly at all. PagBrasil is the first Brazilian payment service provider to offer a solution to this by creating a responsive version of its Boleto Flash™ and Boleto Express. This innovative solution facilitates boleto payments on mobile banking apps for smartphones and tablets and results in significantly increased sales conversions.
In a market with over 76 million smartphone users, according to Nielsen IBOPE, it is crucial to make m-commerce a key part of one’s business strategy to ensure overall success in e-commerce. Recent data indicates that mobile phones have already overtaken desktops as the most used device to access the Internet in Brazil. There is also a clear trend towards more and more Brazilians purchasing powerful mobile devices over personal computers. Consequently, purchases done via mobile devices have grown from 0.3% of all e-commerce transactions in 2011 to 23% in June 2016, according to E-bit Webshoppers report.
Despite the relevancy of m-commerce in Brazil, most Brazilian online shops are not yet adapted for smartphones and tablets users. In fact, only 16% of virtual shops are responsive, according to BigData Corp.
Brazil is ranked 5th in terms of number of smartphone users on a global scale, however, it still remains far behind established markets, such as Japan and the UK. In these countries, m-commerce represents more than 50% of all e-commerce transactions. Considering that Brazil has many more users than both, the Brazilian m-commerce potential is immense.
