What opportunities exist to differentiate in the key components of mobile commerce?

Here is another comment that went up the ratings on GLG Councils in response to the question in Title. Enjoy.


Mobile commerce differentiation is a complicated subject requiring close study of the business, the competitive landscape, the applications used, the offering itself, the target audience etc...

The idea is to look at all elements and create a unique experience that targets the wanted audience with compelling added value to their lives. Do that effectively, and the user will, well, use the offering, promote it through social networking, word of mouth and otherwise to friends, colleagues and associates, and keep using it because it suits him/her and his organization.

This approach both ensures the application is used, providing opportunities to upsell to the user on other offerings, and to ensure the users themselves will market your application to others, which saves some of those expensive marketing dollars.

Another thing to consider, which is huge, is how your application fits in the network as far as connectivity. Will it be carried by a main distribution channel to millions of users instantly through already or will you need to create these channels yourself in a way that it will be harder to predict how many users will be offered your app. This is often the main reason between an offering/service getting on millions of devices, or only a handful. Mobile is a little like the Internet this way. If you don't have the channel to distribute to a captivated audience, the target user will be trying to find a needle in a haystack and may just find your competitor's application instead to serve his purpose.

As far as winners in this space? Well, Apple and Google are well entrenched for selling platforms really. As far as distribution channels for banking or other apps, it really depends on the offering. Most good ones are specialized to a certain industry.