eBay Pushes For Better Mobile Commerce

According to the auction's sites new "Mobile Manifesto", poor mobile network coverage in the UK is restraining the potential growth of mobile commerce here.

The manifesto, which incorporates a survey of 2,000 UK consumers, has been submitted by eBay to a variety of UK mobile policymakers including Ofcom in an attempted to hurry the upcoming auction of the 4G mobile spectrum. The auction has been planned for some time but has been repeatedly delayed for a number of reasons, and is currently scheduled for the end of 2012.

eBay are keen to accelerate the timing of that auction, as they say 4G services are required for the planned rollout of next generation internet services, such as faster download times, more targeted mobile internet marketing, and more sophisticated shopping applications. According to the survey, almost half (45%) of consumers said they were currently unhappy with the speed they can download data on their smartphones. Given that 36% already shop on their mobiles whilst travelling, eBay hope that by increasing connection speed they can boost that 36% considerably; the survey also suggests that three quarters of mobile users would shop via mobile more if retailer websites were better optimised for mobile access.

At present, eBay sees around 10% of their sales (by value) on mobile devices, but the nature of the auction business - with auctions closing every minute - suggests that better mobile connections could see this increase substantially.