Enormous resources for making sales

[img_assist|nid=7969|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=95|height=100]More consumers are resorting to mobile phones as a major purchasing channel which represents a huge opportunity for e-tailers to capture new revenue.

There are 3.3 billion mobile phone users in the world with only 1.3 billion of Internet subscribers. According to research from Cisco Systems handsets will soon be the "fourth channel" for retailers, taking their place alongside physical stores, Web sites and catalogues.

45 North American and European retailers were surveyed by Cisco and 42 of them are already providing their customers with the facility to view products on mobile devices while only 15% offer the ability to conduct transactions, 10% use SMS text messaging to provide customers with information and 6% have Web pages and a URL specifically designed for mobile use.

Amazon was found to be a pioneer among other retailers to enable consumers to make transactions on mobile devices.
To allow customers to use SMS messaging to search products and purchase selected items via cell phones Amazon retailer introduced TextBuyIt in the US which took place earlier this year. A user sends a text message to the retailer citing the name of the item or a UPC or ISBN code and finds a product. Then within seconds the user gets a reply from Amazon with details and prices of products matching the search query.