A decade ago, one couldn’t think of in his wild imagination about the transformation of e-business or e-commerce into mobile commerce, in short m-commerce. Although the popularity is still on its nascent stage but we need to understand what m-commerce is.
Mobile commerce is the way of doing business through Mobile Devices or Wireless Technology. Mobile commerce can help companies to run their entire business through mobile or PDA devices. As mobile devices are more user friendly than a computer, people can do variety of tasks through mobile such as checking movie details and other useful information on their mobile devices. Many companies are accepting payment by SMS payment system. In future Mobile Commerce (m-commerce) will be sales and marketing showcase, educational application for companies.
There are many benefits of m-commerce. The two main benefits are:
• Data entry through mobile devices
• Access reports through mobile or PDA devices
Others benefits includes buyers can access catalog on their mobile devices, companies can do promotions, show their products, and customers can price details from any places.
How Mobile Commerce can help companies? Through m-commerce, companies can make websites for mobile devices, which is popularly known as WAP (Wireless Application Protocol). They can make online catalog for their products and services so that mobile users can access that catalog from their mobile devices. But to make active catalogs, companies need to develop Data Synchronization tool that can help companies to convert their Database into XML and XML data into their Database format so that companies can use both online and off line software applications for data entry and access reports through mobile devices if they develop web applications into XHTML.
Not all the handsets have the facility of m-commerce and one must buy an appropriate mobile set to start their business. There are number of handsets in markets that are matched the requirements such as Blackberry 8100g, Blackberry 8310, HTC Touch Dual, Nokia E61i with quad band GSM and 3G technology and many more. One can find these sets in any online mobile stores like themobileshop.com and other shopping portals. They offer an attractive range of sets with equally commanding price range.
