Tag: mobile commerce thanksgiving

This year’s RhythmOne study is aligning well with other predictions with regards to purchasing with smartphones.

For the last several years, mobile commerce trends have shown that smartphone owners are using their devices to an increasing degree with each new holiday shopping season and the results of a new RhythmOne study have revealed that this year will be no exception to that rule.

The majority of holiday shoppers intend to take part in mobile shopping activities this year, said the report.

In fact, the report on the study showed that 71.5 percent of holiday shoppers intend to take part in mobile commerce in at least some levels of the shopping process from browsing through to the actual purchase. The report labeled those consumers as “mobile holiday shoppers” as they intend to go online or use a mobile app on their smartphones in order to research, find, or purchase products as gifts.

This represents the 11th annual study of this nature conducted by RhythmOne and shows the largest mobile commerce influence.

According to the authors of the report, “Among mobile holiday shoppers, 40.9 percent will use a smartphone only, 40.0 percent will use both a smartphone and a tablet, and 19.1 percent will use a tablet only to research/shop for holiday products and gifts.” They also went on to underscore their discovery that throughout the holiday season, 60.4 percent of mobile shoppers between the ages of 18 and 34 years will use a smartphone as their exclusive device for shopping behaviors at this time of year.

As the company now has an 11 year history of building an understanding the holiday shopping habits of consumers, they feel quite strongly that their results provide important insight with regards to the path to purchase being taken by consumers. Marketers may be able to take advantage of this knowledge in order to best reach consumers at this busiest buying time of the year.

Another important point made by this mobile commerce research is that smartphones are being used to an increasing degree while customers are actually standing within a brick and mortar store. They are being consulted to help in decision making, to read reviews, check competitor prices and to see if coupons or other types of mobile discounts are available.

The true start to the purchasing season over smartphones and tablets is expected to kick off on the holiday itself.

Although the tradition was once to get together with family on Thanksgiving day and to shop for deals on Black Friday, things have changed with the addition of m-commerce and the internet as a growing number of people finish their meals and sign on to start their bargain hunting right away.

The new attitude is that there is no reason to wait when they have the shop sitting right there in their hand.

M-commerce is not only redefining the way that people behave over the Thanksgiving holiday, but it is also turning holiday shopping patterns on their head. Every year, new trends are being identified and monitored in order to help to better predict what will happen the year afterward. As mobile commerce is a relatively new channel that is taking off very quickly, many retailers are scrambling to know what to do and when to place the main target on consumers.

This year, m-commerce trends suggest that retailers that wait for Cyber Monday may have waited too long.

It isn’t that consumers won’t be signing on to the internet on Cyber Monday. In fact, the vast majority of online shoppers will likely focus on that day when they are sitting in front of their desktops and laptops – which represents most of the consumers that will be shopping online for deals. However, when it comes to the massively growing number of shoppers that will be buying their products and services over m-commerce, they may still be feeling stuffed from their turkey dinner when they use their smartphones and tablets to check out what’s available.

According to the principal analyst of digital index at Adobe, Tyler White, “The change happened when people had mobile devices in their hands. People want to be with their families, but if you’re bored with the football game, you start shopping. Mobile is driving the growth on Thanksgiving.” Though it is anticipated that retail revenue overall will likely remain flat this year, the sales that are occurring from Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday are expected by Adobe to break records in its growth, particularly over m-commerce.