A diagram traversing mobile dealers: How will the next billion dollar market open?

Mobile power companies are emerging, a major innovation in retailing since companies and individuals began selling goods and services online before 20. Able to lead the market, the first successful establishment of new mobile business model Enterprises will have the opportunity to obtain the largest market returns. New services that cannot be implemented before smartphones, such as user-demand services and mobile-based services, are exciting and will eventually breed a new unicorn company.

No one can predict exactly what technology will produce the next billions of dollar company, and it is more difficult to predict where the giant unicorn would come from. History tells us that companies of this magnitude will only show up to 1 to 2 in a decade. At present, the US 3 Super "unicorn" are from the science and technology companies (Facebook, Google and Amazon), and focus on science and technology investment has gradually moved to the mobile sector. This allows us to make a reasonable prediction about the future: Smartphones will be the key technology for unlocking the next billion-dollar market.

Make two bold predictions: smartphones and tablets will account for more than 75% of the world's online transactions by 2020, while consumption will be more than 50%; the first Super Unicorn in the Mobile world will not be a firm with strong media attributes like Google and Facebook, It would be an e-commerce company like Amazon. If historians of science and technology look back 2010 years, they will find that from now on the next 10 years is a mobile e-commerce 10 years.

Opportunities for Mobile E-business

The first step for entrepreneurs eager to grasp the opportunities for mobile E-commerce is to understand the industry profile. The industrial ecology of mobile e-commerce is mainly composed of six parts: Mobile Payments, retailing support (retail enablement), Mobile retailing (mobile retail), trading platform (marketplaces), on-demand service (On-demand services) and the APP based service (app-based).

The core of mobile payments and retail support is the ability to trade mobile devices (mobile empowering), enabling smartphones and tablets to function to support the completion of mobile shopping. The core of the mobile retail and trading platform is the optimization of mobile enhanced, including some mainstream mobile e-commerce companies, which have been operating on the desktop web for many years, but have more opportunities to migrate to the mobile end. On-demand and app-based services are entirely dependent on the wave of Mobility (mobile enabled), which cannot exist without the birth of mobile phones and tablets. (We excluded the media class, gaming, messaging, and social network applications, which are more akin to media and content-driven rather than transactional-driven, are more dependent on the use of advertising and virtual goods for profit than for e-commerce through real goods and services transactions. ）

Companies flocking to the mobile E-commerce market have almost all the service lines involved, but there is a particular focus on on-demand services and on app based services in two segments, one reason is that these two areas are relatively new. The mobile payments and retail support classes represented by Square and Ratailmenot early on in business model innovation, or on the original business model to adapt it to the smartphone mobile terminal. Meanwhile, mobile e-commerce companies such as zulily and gilt have built their own platforms. Mobile shopping trends are irresistible, and they take advantage of the opportunity to build new business models based on smartphones (such as group buying) to gain a competitive advantage. In the fourth quarter of 2013, Zulily's trading in the North American mobile market accounted for 45% of its overall trading volume, compared with 31% in the same period in 2012. Over the past 18 months, Uber and Lyft two have provided on-demand services. But there is no noteworthy star of tomorrow in the business of providing app services.

We predict that there will be a lot of new big companies in the two areas of on-demand services and app based services, a view that has been consolidated by many venture capitalists. After the success of Uber and Lyft, capital markets poured more than 100 million dollars into the dozens of start-up teams focused on dining and travel, including Eat Club, Munchery, sprig, Caviar, SpoonRocket, Fluc, DoorDash, Postmates, Instacart, Blue apron, plated, and well Eggs. The travel service and the dining service have become the investor's most favored initial investment target, because these services are frequently used in life, and have a strong timeliness, it is said that these services will be from the mobile terminal GPS and real-time push notifications and other functions to get their own services to enhance the capabilities. Other service categories in the market on demand are also slowly heating up, such as cleaning houses, laundry, private warehousing and so on. App-based services are also active, such as the recently funded fitness app (FitStar, MyFitnessPal) and the Health Management app (HealthTap, been on Demand).

Here's a brief overview of each of the mobile E-commerce segments, and think about how companies in each sector can become market leaders.

Mobile payment

We define mobile payment companies as companies that provide mobile payment infrastructure, mobile POS systems, and mobile payment solutions. This is a challenging area characterized by small profit margins, large capital support to scale, and fierce competition from credit card companies and PayPal. Companies that want to succeed in this field must be very proficient in assessing credit risk accurately. Given that it is difficult for payment companies to scale the IPO, it is also critical to keep the open posture of mergers and acquisitions easy to exit. PageOnce, a company that recently withdrew from the field, sold it to Intuit for 360 million dollars.

Retail support

We define a retail support company as a company that provides services to make mobile-end retail transactions more convenient, these services include: Help potential consumers find products they need to buy online, or provide them with convenient offline shopping services (including in-store promotions, mobile coupons, location-based services). Most of these companies rely on features such as geo-positioning or messaging to enable them to push their services and products at the right time and place to the consumers who really need them. The key to winning in this field is to talk to consumers in a more intelligent way and to understand consumers ' interests and behavior characteristics without disturbing consumers.

Mobile Retail

We define a mobile retail company to extend the desktop-side web retail platform to the mobile side, and to build a mobile shopping application that sells items to consumers on smartphones or tablets. In the article "Commerce is a bear", Bonobos's CEO Andy Dunn the idea that mobile e-commerce start-ups have four survival strategies against Amazon: proprietary choices, proprietary pricing, proprietary experience, and proprietary goods. These four strategies enable the mobile platform's shopping services to be upgraded. In other words, companies currently focused on mobile retailing are thinking about how to offer differentiated experiences. These companies are changing consumers ' shopping experience on the mobile side by embedding their own services, such as taking photos and sending information.

Trading platform

We define a trading platform company as a company that facilitates the transaction between the buyer and the seller, which can be based on the web online trading platform on the mobile side of the expansion platform, can also be based on a mobile application. The key to the success of any trading platform is to strengthen the liquidity of the trading market, which is the faster and better way to move their trading market to the mobile end. Trading platforms such as HotelTonight and Fobo incorporate localized, time-sensitive elements, and their transactions can only be done on the mobile side, allowing users to experience the performance of their services on smartphones. The key to winning in this field is the ability to provide low-cost, demand-matching, efficient services to buyers and sellers, which minimizes transaction friction.

On-demand service

We define on-demand service companies to provide buyers with time-sensitive, focused services in a vertical area. If a trading platform class company can provide on-demand services (usually provided in minutes or hours), or can provide real-time service updates to buyers, we also place these companies in this niche. The features of smart phones such as positioning, navigating, and pushing information make such services possible in recent years, which is why companies in this niche have such a large market opportunity. Many of these companies offer very practical services. In other words, the key to success in this area is the convenience of services and price friendliness. To achieve these two points, we need to rely on the size of the driver and rely on the precise algorithm of the driver scheduling scheme, distribution routes.

App Based Services

We define a company that provides an app based service to companies that provide users with a completely native mobile application service. Because users will use these services on their smartphones, the ability to design an intuitive, user-friendly user interface and seamless user experience for the app is key to the success of the service. Entrepreneurs in this niche should pay attention to the ease of use and user participation of mobile applications. They should also take into account the digital characteristics of their own products to minimize costs, and continuously improve their products to optimize their transformation channels. Through constant accumulation, these improvements will translate into a pleasant experience for consumers and a more attractive price advantage.

The rise of mobile E-commerce is the beginning of the 20 before enterprises and individuals began to sell goods and services online, the retail industry has another important wave of innovation. Able to lead the market, the first successful establishment of new mobile business model Enterprises will have the opportunity to obtain the largest market returns. New types of services, such as user-based services and mobile-based services that could not be achieved before the advent of smartphones, are exciting and will eventually breed a new world-leading unicorn.

(Responsible editor: Lu Guang)