34% of Small Businesses Say No to Mobile: Here’s Why

About two-thirds of small businesses use mobile technologies to conduct business, according to a new Constant Contact survey released this week.  Of the small businesses using mobile, they report using a mobile device, including smart phones and tablets, or a solution, like mobile-optimized websites and text message marketing.

But what’s surprising is that 34% do not use mobile technologies for their business, And of those, 65% have no plans to in the future.

Reasons for Small Businesses Not Using Mobile

The main reasons for not using mobile were:

• Lack of customer demand — Among the 34% not using mobile technologies, more than half said customers were not demanding mobile communications.   As for mobile payments, 47% said their customers didn’t express interest in being able to pay for products or services through mobile means.
• Lack of know-how or time — Roughly a third said they didn’t know enough about mobile technologies to use them in their small businesses. Another third said they haven’t had time to implement mobile solutions or devices yet.
• Lack of devices — Thirty-one percent said they don’t have a work-related smartphone.
• Lack of relevancy — Twenty-eight percent said that mobile is not relevant to their businesses.

“Generally speaking, small business owners have very little spare time on their hands, so learning how to use mobile technology for their business is not necessarily tops on their ‘to do’ list,” said Joel Hughes, Constant Contact’s senior vice president,  in a statement accompanying the survey.

He added, “We received some anecdotal survey responses that said ‘It costs too much’ and ‘I have no idea how this stuff works,’ representing the subset of small businesses that will forgo mobile opportunities until their customers start demanding mobile communications or payment solutions.”

For this survey, Constant Contact polled its Small Biz Council, a research panel recruited from the Constant Contact customer base.  The panel included 1,305 business-to-business, business-to-consumer, and non-profit companies for its information. Nearly 72 percent of those responding were the primary decision makers at their company.

Image: Constant Contact