This past Black Friday revealed some interesting statistics about mobile Internet use and the effects it had on the giant retailer, Walmart.
Again, we see the case for church’s to leverage mobile technology .
At the very least, your church website needs to be mobile ready, and you should strongly consider setting up mobile donations. When it comes to a dedicated app, while I would only recommend this for larger churches, the time may come sooner than later when this will be as vital as having a mobile ready website.
Here are the findings regarding Walmart’s past Black Friday and Cyber Monday:
The Findings
- 70% of Walmart.com traffic from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday came from mobile devices. Smartphones and tablets are becoming the ‘path to purchase’—donations to nonprofit organizations are no exception.
- Cyber Monday 2014 saw the biggest online day in history with 1.5 billion pageviews. It’s clear that people are comfortable conducting financial transactions online. Why not tithing and donations?
- Walmart app users received push notifications to alert them of ongoing deals. Here’s were we see mobile apps have a leg up on a mobile website. The key, however, is navigating through what should and shouldn’t be including with app notifications. Because once your notifications have been turned-off, you instantly lose that advantage.
Here are a few other statistics that simply reinforce the idea that mobile commerce is here to stay and the church needs to make mobile donations an option:
“At Unbound Commerce, we saw aggregate 2014 Black Friday mobile revenue, from a same-store index of 350-plus online retailers, was up 144.3 percent over 2013. Our client’s aggregate conversion rate was up 35 percent and the number of mobile sessions, across the broad index, surged 71 percent.”
“Mobile Black Friday page views rendered, across the same-store index was up 79 percent. Clearly, consumers have embraced mobile commerce and are increasingly comfortable with using mobile to not only check prices but to convert the sale when they locate a deal.”
We are coming close to the time whereby a church not being able to accept online donations would be as bad as a church not being able to accept a check.
If retailers are successfully bridging the gap between the online and offline world, the Church should, too.
[via Mobile Commerce Daily | Thumbs up iPhone image via Janitors via Compfight cc]
phillip Mkweza says
That is very true and am leading a small church with about seventy members ;but I have discoverd that it is very important also to members to have even mobilephones because it helps in easy communication and that donations.
So, is our prayer that almost all members should have that.
May the Lord bless you man of God for your courageous message.
Eric Dye says
🙂
Matt Chandler says
Good article with some solid points about the importance of mobile.
I have to recommend Givelify as a great mobile giving solution.
(Disclosure: I’m the Director of Digital Marketing at Givelify.)
Eric Dye says
LOL! Great disclosure, Matt. You’ve got a great service. 🙂