Over 3.2 million businesses are due to miss out on £52.6bn in revenues in the next 12 months alone because they haven’t switched on to mobile, according to new research.
The National Survey of 500 UK SMEs by OnePoll reveal that SMEs are not responding fast enough to customers’ changing habits and come amidst a period of unprecedented growth in the number of consumers in the UK using mobile phones to access the Internet, which has doubled in the UK over the last 3 years.
Increasingly sophisticated consumers regularly use their mobile devices to find businesses, purchase goods or services, compare product prices and seek out deals.
With an average of 5% of all retail sales coming via mobile**, businesses who fail to successfully present themselves to a mobile customer are at risk of forgoing a slice of the projected £50 billion in potential revenue that could come from mobile sources over the next 12 months.
The national OnePoll survey of 500 SMEs uncovered that only 18.4% will be adopting a mobile presence in the next 12 months, which leaves a significant 47.4% of SMEs at risk of losing their competitive edge and failing to harness the lucrative power of mobile for sales as well as customer retention.
The survey discovered that the key barrier preventing SMEs from taking advantage of the current mobile revolution was lack of technical knowledge, with 46% citing this as the main preventative factor. This was closely followed by the perceived cost of development with 36% citing this as the key barrier and 35% of SMEs admitting they were unsure of the overall benefits of a mobile presence to their business. Results also varied drastically on a regional basis with SMEs in East Anglia (59%) and
Northern Ireland (55%) more likely to have adopted a mobile presence and businesses in the North East (19%) and the West Midlands (22%) faring worst. London and the South East fared slightly above average with 45% of SMEs still without a mobile presence.
“With so many people now using mobile devices to access the internet it’s a huge surprise that more businesses are not rising to the challenge and adapting their offerings for the sophisticated mobile user. Mobile is changing our business landscape in a similar way to how the internet changed our economy; those who embrace mobile fastest will quickly reap the rewards from this lucrative sales and communication channel.” Daniele Pelleri, Co Founder & CEO, AppsBuilder.
Of those SMEs who have implemented a mobile strategy, 44% spent up to £10,000, 55% spent between £10,000 and £100,000 and a mere 1% spent over £100,000, showing how the cost of adopting mobile has dropped significantly since 2012 when anticipated costs were well over the £100,000 mark.
In a bid to address the shortfall in mobile performance and empower more UK businesses with the knowledge and tools to meet the needs of their customers, AppsBuilder has launched the #GetMobileNow campaign which includes a host of free resources to assist businesses in the switch to mobile operations.
www.getmobilenow.co