Technology is always evolving. It must be, to keep up with an on-the-go, fast-paced society. Because of this, companies continue to upgrade their devices to provide the best products to today's consumers. This is particularly true for phones. People have had the ability to talk without a landline for decades, and now they expect to be able to do more. Smartphones satisfy that desire. However, the growth in popularity of the devices has added pressure for e-commerce businesses to meet demand, and the supply chain is struggling to earn revenue.
The popularity of mobility
Cellphones today come with so many abilities that you don't even need a desktop computer or landline phone to go online or communicate with people. You'll be able to text, make calls, look up the answer to a question and view your social media pages all from your mobile device. If it weren't for the size of the screen, you wouldn't need other technology to do the majority of other things.
Many people are seeing the benefits of this. According to Trinity Digital Marketing, there are approximately 6 billion mobile subscribers, and one in seven searches is now done from a mobile device as opposed to a desktop computer. With these numbers, companies must take advantage of smartphones' abilities to capitalize on mobile usage.
Struggle to make ends meet
Unfortunately, making revenue isn't as easy as it sounds. According to the Pew Research Center, mobile spending makes up 37 percent of the $50.7 billion-worth of digital advertisements. However, those ads aren't bringing in the money that businesses had hoped, considering the popularity of mobile devices. Only 10 percent of The New York Times' digital ad revenue comes from mobile, Advertising Age reported.
This can come from a variety of issues. There isn't much room to display content that is both visually appealing and informational like there is on a larger screen, and publishers and marketers may not fully understand the strategy that is needed to earn a return on their investment, the source explained. They've stuck to desktop methods rather than adjusting their approach.
"It's still largely unchartered territory," Rachel Pasqua, lead of mobile and emerging technologies at MEC Global, told Advertising Age. "When you have uncharted territory, the knee jerk is to go to the big player everyone is familiar with."
To make all parts of the supply chain financially stable and beneficial, companies will need to rework their marketing strategies for mobile devices.