Report finds more consumers than expected turn to their mobile devices to handle the bulk of their shopping activity.
According to a fourth-quarter 2015 Mobile Wallet Report from Nielsen, 37 percent of participants said their purchases begin with mobile commerce over one-quarter to half of the time. Considering many American’s own smartphones and these devices have become an important part of their daily lives – functioning as a constant companion and information resource – it only makes sense that most people who own these devices would use them as a research tool prior to making a purchase. That said, consumers don’t limit their mobile shopping practices to only smartphones.
The report found that there are many tablet shoppers as well.
The results of the study revealed that 72 percent of mobile shoppers research an item on their smartphones before buying. What’s more, 70 percent check the price of an item and 60 percent use a store locator to find the store where they can purchase the product that they want.
However, the report also discovered that consumers rely on tablet commerce, too. While not used nearly as frequently as smartphones for locating a store (a mere 31 percent to the smartphone’s 60 percent), when it comes to researching an item before purchasing it, 66 percent of respondents said that they used tablets, with 57 percent using tablets for checking the price of an item.
Yet, interestingly, when it comes to making an actual purchase via a mobile device, more respondents made purchases via their tablets than smartphones. For instance, 28 percent of participants purchased a service via their tablet compared to 21 percent of participants who used their smartphone.
When engaging in mobile commerce, certain factors are important to the consumer’s experience.
Nielsen’s report also examined “Factors that are important when shopping on mobile Q4 2015” and – not surprising – found that 62 percent of mobile consumer who took part in the study want a highly visual experience and want to be able to view product pictures above all else when using their smartphone for shopping. Shoppers (48 percent of respondents) also want mobile-friendly websites, while 44 percent of participants said that it was also very important for there to be a product description.
Based on these findings, it’s clear that the mobile commerce trend is growing; giving marketers and advertisers who want to reach their desired target market, new opportunities to do so.
A recent report has shown that retailers are struggling to boost site use among smartphone based shoppers.
Though it may seem quite easy to applaud the growth of mobile shopping and to feel that it is simple to hop on board and offer people a great m-commerce experience, provided that the site is smartphone-friendly, retailers are discovering that customer habits make things more challenging than anticipated.
Among the main problems is that shoppers are less likely to browse around when they use mobile devices.
A recent study, conducted by SimilarWeb, found that people using mobile shopping are viewing a smaller number of pages per site visit. Last year, the average online shopper using a desktop or a laptop viewed an average of 8.3 pages per site visit. That said, the average shopper using m-commerce channels such as smartphones and tablets saw only 5.8 pages. When it comes to trying to encourage people to add more to their carts, that represents a considerable reduction in opportunity for retailers.
The research also found that mobile shopping cuts down on the length of time of the visit, as well.
SimilarWeb determined that when shopping over desktop or laptop, people would browse around for an average of 6 minutes and 50 seconds on a retail site in 2015. However, when using mobile devices, that length of time fell considerably, plummeting to only 4 minutes and 29 seconds.
According to the firm’s digital insights manager, Pavel Tuchinsky, “Engagement and time on site has not been maintained in the transition toward mobile shopping.” That said, Tuchinsky also felt that there was a solution to this challenge. He explained that “Retailers must continue to embrace the rapid change towards mobile, including better checkout flows, and integration between desktop and mobile sites.”
It is no mystery that mobile shopping is becoming exceptionally important to shoppers. In the United States, it’s estimated that about 55.8 percent of all retail site visits came from users of smartphones and tablets in 2015. It will be up to retailers to try to keep on top of these trends and to better understand what their customers want if they intend to stay ahead in online sales.
