Author: Julie Campbell

Mobile shopping takes off with shift in retail habits

| July 24, 2015

This, according to the results of a recent study that was conducted by Synchrony Financial.

Consumer financial services firm, Synchrony Financial has released the results of its 2015 Digital Study that underscores the importance of mobile shopping strategies for retailers that want to boost their customer experience and engage their shoppers.

The survey was held throughout March and April of this year, with the participation of 7,000 of the firm’s customers.

The customers were selected at random from throughout the country. The purpose was to build a better understanding of the way in which customers view mobile shopping in the retail experience, and what they expect from the offerings over their smartphones and tablets. There were a number of key findings that identified some important trends to retailers that will be keeping a focus on the tech expectations of consumers.

Among the primary findings of the study was that nearly 50 percent of respondents use mobile shopping.

Survey - Mobile ShoppingNearly one third of the survey participants will purchase a product after having seen it on social media. Moreover, it was also pointed out that about the same number of respondents to the survey said that the receipt of offers via text would push them to make an incremental shopping visit. Additional value offers, such as loyalty programs, free shipping, and personalized offers also proved to continue to be important to the people who completed this survey.

The report indicated that consumers are using mobile technology to an increasing degree. Adoption of m-commerce has been rising among central segments of the population. Of all of the study’s respondents, 45 percent said that at some point this year, they had already used a smartphone or tablet in order to complete a task that is related to shopping, such as reading or leaving reviews, researching a product, brand or store, sharing information over social media, or actually making a purchase. This represented an increase of 4 percent over the figure from 2014. When compared to 2013, it represented an increase of 9 percent.

As mobile shopping habits continue to be an increasingly important trend among all mobile devices and all age groups of shoppers, the report showed that retail habits are also continuing to change.

Mobile ads at Apple may be based on what you can afford

| July 22, 2015

The tech giant has now patented a tool that would display advertisements based on how much money a user has.

Reports are now showing that Apple has patented a new tool that would make it possible for mobile ads to display only products and services that should be considered affordable to the individual user of that device, according to their own banks.

This mobile marketing strategy would target people based on their incomes and credit card balances.

It is already common practice for marketers to obtain information about the kinds of products that smartphone and tablet users have the greatest likelihood of purchasing based on the sites that they visit and other interactions that they have with their devices. Physical location, gender, and age can all play an important role in decision making when it comes to the types of products and services that you will buy, and they will also impact the kinds of ads that will be displayed on your device screen. However, this type of information could soon have an even larger influence on the mobile ads that you are seeing than has been the case in the past.

The idea is that the mobile ads won’t just be for the types of things that we want, but for what we can actually afford.

Mobile Ads Based On What You Can AffordAfter all, if someone has a budget of $100 available to them, then serving them a mobile advertisement for a $900 outfit won’t do anyone all that much good; not the consumer and not the advertiser.

Now, Apple has received a U.S. patent in order to try to repair this issue. They intend to do this by checking into the credit card balance of a user in order to be able to display mobile marketing that is more appropriate to their available funds. The description and illustration of the patent that was granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, described it as a “method and system for targeted advertising of goods and services to users of mobile terminals.”

It looks as though it would have to be an opt-in program (though that is not necessarily confirmed), to ensure that those individuals will be shown mobile ads only for products and services that they will be able to afford, based on their own banking information.