M Commerce- next generation e-commerce by ZAINUB @LEXCLIQ

Also known as mobile commerce. It was first developed by Kevin Duffey in 1977 at Logica. Basically, it is the ability to conduct online commerce/business through wireless handheld electronic devices i.e mobile devices such as mobile phone, tablets, personal digital assistance, laptops etc. Now our mobile phones are not only limited to make calls only, It allows the user to purchase, do online shopping or sell anything from anywhere(wherever they are sitting) through their mobile devices which then interact with computer networks. It is just a subset of electronic e-commerce.

Nowadays, this trend of online shopping is increasing rapidly as a wild fire and has become a very essential part of our lives. Computers and Internet are used for various purposes like sending email,

searching information, music, videos, chatting, job searching, online gaming, online ticket booking, paying bills, online banking and lot more.

But these device vendors target younger generations as they are more advanced and prone to them for advancement/promotion of their business, they develops certain applications and websites which helps them in achieving it.

So but now e-commerce is now being overtaken by -commerce because of ease of convenience and wireless devices so noone is bound to perform from a specific area only.

• Commerce services-

it offers various services such as M-banking, M-Marketing, M-information services, M-shopping and even M-entertainment.now it has entered into finance as we all know that financial institutions nowadays use it to access account information, make transactions, can purchase and sell stocks and can even transfer money to other banks. We could even pay for our services through this.

M-commerce = E-commerce + Wireless web

Features of M-commerce:

1. Buyers can use any of the handheld devices they are not restricted to sitting at one place on a computer connected through internet to do their work, infact they can do it on their mobile phones or portable notebooks. This allows direct access of interest and alo helps in attracting the customers.
2. Fast processing – The most important aspect od mobile-commerce is that it is fast, we can receive our items on the spot I any form which we want, business owners get their payments on the spot via paytm, googlepay, netbanking etc. And then customers can get their item too just on some clicks. But these are dependent over the internet services ofcourse.
3. Reduce business costs – as a seller we don’t have to pay for separate offices, staff or any employee. Small business owners don’t need to pay for an office they can carry out their operations sitting at home too. They just need to advertise the information of the products and services which helps them for higher per-sale profit and sometimes the products can have lower prices compared to others.
4. No need or little need for maintenance-  owners just need to do few maintenance duties I.e correcting an error or updating the product or anything. They don’t need to maintain each and every thing because online it is much more easier. Also it requires very little maintenance from the seller too.
5. Services and applications- sevices such as booking tickets, simple application downloads, paying for services, download books and CD’s that were done on PC now we can easily access them on our mobile phones sitting anywhere without any restrictions.

Challenges to M-commerce in India-

As we all are very well aware that India is a developing country and there is a scope for businesses as if online or offline both. But as our youth is more attracted towards gadgets, mobile phones and m-commerce because of it’s certain advantages so it is spreading rapidly like a wildfire in market.

But inspite of it’s favouraitism there are certain factors which are affecting large business organizations in their business activities.

As security is a big feature for us we don’t want our privacy to get invade while we are doing shopping online or offline. So risks are associated with business whether it is offline or online, so therefore, m-commerce is not a sure thing to get success.

Security– nowadays, we all are aware that there are increased number of cases of hacking and thefts of customers’ data and retailers’ too.

Example- recently Unacademy’s data has been compromised and millions of customers’ data have been compromised. Same as in WHO’s data has been hacked and distributed among us.

But, sometimes cash on delievery option is also not favourable because customer’s don’t feel secure for paying large amount of sums physically as it is not safe. So companies have to ensure trust amongst their customers that their system transactions are safe and noneed to worry. And their are certain security techniques and encryptions available to ensure this.

Such as- “GSM promises a secure connection through the PIN(personal Identification Number) while turning on handset. An authentication protocol between handset and the network through SSL encryption of voice and data is what the technology can do today and what the Consumer has been led to expect.”

Business risks– we as consumers always wants best and great deals and something innovative for ourselves while purchasing anything online, but as we all aware that their is some ambuiguity with quality of product especially clothes, groceries, footwears etc. As while shopping in the market we could check for the quality and be sure about everything with our wisdom knowledge and everything so due to these reasons some people are still not confident enough about online shopping and hesitate .

So this is quite a deal for companies to convince their customers that they are offring better quality products in low prices as compared to deals provided at brick and mortar stores.Certain e-commerce tycoons of India such as flipkart and snapdeal have built their websites and applications so that customers could easily access them through their mobile phones. Paytm, Gpay is another leading example in m-commerce fields. Companies are providing discounts and other types of offers for consumers ordering using mobile applications. Snapdeal has revealed that its mobile apps contributed about 45% of sales in the previous three months.further it was  revealed Flipkart got about 20% of its orders through mobile apps and hopes mobile users to contribute half its total sales in a year.

Attacks on Mobile/cell devics in M-commerce:

1. Mobile Phone Theft
2. Mobile Virus
3. Mishing
4. Vishing: Internet e-Mail, Mobile Text Messaging, Voicemail, Direct Phone Call
5. Smishing: Pretexting, Sexting, VoIP Spam
6. Hacking Bluetooth