Tag: holiday season mobile commerce

Burst Media has released the results of its annual holiday survey, indicating that consumers are prepped with their smartphones.

The latest annual holiday survey from Burst Media has revealed that consumers are already getting ready to start their shopping during the heaviest season of the year, and that while they plan to head to brick and mortar shopping malls and online shops, alike, they will be using mobile commerce in a number of different ways to help them throughout their purchasing journeys.

This year’s calendar has shaken up the pattern of events when compared to previous recent years.

For instance, this year, Hanukkah will be starting ahead of Thanksgiving, and for the first time since 2008, Cyber Monday will be occurring in December. This could be a defining pattern, particularly when it comes to mobile commerce, as it was barely in existence the last time this happened, so this year will present the first real data regarding what retailers can expect when online shopping kicks off when December has already started, and after Hanukkah is already in full swing.

The survey provided a considerable amount of online and mobile commerce insight for this year’s season.

Among the key findings of the holiday shopping and mobile commerce survey from Burst Media are the following:

• Marketers have time on their sides. Among the respondents of the survey, a large portion (40 percent) begin their holiday shopping following their Thanksgiving celebrations. Only 14.3 percent have already begun, and 11.8 percent started just after Halloween.
• Smartphones and tablets are playing an increasing role in the overall shopping process. Among the respondents, 45.7 percent use smartphones, and 41.3 percent use tablets for online browsing and shopping for holiday gifts and products. This is far greater than last year’s statistics.
• Mobile commerce apps will play an important part in the shopping this season, as 54.6 percent of women and 41.9 percent of men use shopping apps at least somewhat frequently – far more than in 2012.
• Smartphones are helping with shopping in brick and mortar shops, as 40.3 percent of the respondents use their devices while inside the stores to assist in their decision making.
• Parents are using mobile commerce to comparison shop for better prices while inside brick and mortar retail locations. This was the case among 64.5 percent of moms and 63.2 percent of dads.

According to the latest Hipcricket survey, this channel will show its true value before the end of the year.

Although the holiday shopping season has become synonymous with crowded malls and waiting in tremendous lineups once the perfect items have been found, mobile commerce is predicted to begin a sizeable change in this tradition, this year.

The prediction is that many more shoppers will be looking to their smartphones and tablets to skip the lines.

Moreover, shoppers will also be using mobile commerce to be able to hunt for the products that they want and find the best prices so that they can buy them in store, reducing the amount of time that they will actually spend going from one brick and mortar store, so that they can beeline to exactly what they want. Not only will they be purchasing gifts over smartphones and tablets but they will be finding them and tracking them down before buying them in person.

This is according to the latest mobile commerce data that has been released by Hipcricket.

The Hipcricket study has shown that 53 percent of the participants in its holiday shopping study intend to spend a larger amount over mobile commerce in 2013 than they did at the same time in 2012.

The report stated that “Hipcricket survey data shows that 42% of respondents will shop more on mobile devices this holiday season compared to 2012. This means that the total number of mobile purchases should increase significantly, as the survey also found that in the past six months, close to 59% of smartphones users made at least one purchase on their device.”

It also went on to say that mobile commerce will contribute to the overall sales made in over different channels from traditional online shopping (over desktops or laptops) and in store. They said that there will be two ways that smartphone and tablets will be contributing, and that is a driver of sales, as people shop over the devices themselves, and as a research tool that will send people directly into the stores or to their traditional computers where they will complete the transaction based on what they found on the smaller screens.