SK Planet forum discusses future of mobile commerce

Jeon Yun-ho, chief technology officer of SK Planet, speaks about the future of mobile commerce during the company’s IT conference “Tech Planet 2014” at COEX in Samseong-dong, southern Seoul, Monday. / Courtesy of SK Planet

By Yoon Sung-won

SK Group commerce affiliate SK Planet, says new mobile commerce technologies will further blur the line between online and offline transactions and change the way customers buy products.

During the company’s IT fair “Tech Planet 2014” at COEX in Samseong-dong, southern Seoul, Monday, SK Planet discussed with e-commerce global players ― including Alibaba, Google and Facebook ― the future of e-commerce, Internet of Things (IoT), wearable devices and other key IT issues.

“Various creative IT hardware devices are increasingly connected to software, bringing more connections between humans and computers, as well as computers and the world,” said SK Planet chief technology officer Jeon Yun-ho in an opening speech.

“This change will bring more innovative services and opportunities in the mobile commerce industry. Alongside such new technologies, devices and ideas, new regulations and standards should be made.”

SK Planet operates a mobile wallet service for smartphones called “Syrup.” The online and offline (O2O) commerce platform allows users to integrate mobile payment and membership services in one application.

Cyriac Roeding, CEO of U.S. e-commerce company Shopkick, and James Chen, vice executive director of Japan’s Rakuten, also delivered keynotes about the online-to-offline (O2O) commerce market and the future of retail, which mobile technologies will change.

Rakuten is world’s fourth-largest e-commerce company in terms of sales and Shopkick is a Silicon Valley-based developer of a smartphone application that attracts customers by offering rewards for entering stores.

SK Planet acquired Shopkick last month.

Roeding suggested the key to retail success still depended on how to lure more customers into offline stores.

“Despite the rapid growth of e-commerce, the majority of the retail sales come from offline stores,” he pointed out.

Citing consumer research data, Roeding said about $3 trillion annual revenue was still generated from bricks-and-mortar stores in the United States, while e-commerce accounted for $300 billion.

He suggested companies should consider how to attract people into their stores, saying $1.4 trillion revenue came from digitally influenced in-store sales. This meant that many customers still checked online shopping websites before actually buying at offline stores.

“Retailers should introduce methods that encourage customers to visit stores,” he said. “I would suggest they should reward customers for visiting, not for actually purchasing something.”

Chen that mobile technology would blur physical boundaries of commerce.

“The scope of the e-commerce platform has changed from physical goods to digital, and now to on-demand services,” he said. “Things like wearable devices and the IoT technology will expedite such changes in commerce and raise the need for more intuitive mobile payment methods.”