Tag: mobile commerce trends

Shoppers are making it clear that when it comes to shopping and buying, larger screens are king.

The latest development that has been becoming increasingly clear when it comes to mobile marketing news is that it is actually tablet commerce that is taking the hearts of shoppers, more than that occurring over smartphones.

Last year saw a doubling of overall mobile sales, bringing them to a striking $60 billion.

A report has just been issued by Javelin Strategy & Research, called “Mobile Payments Market: Tablet Shopping Surges as Mobile Retail Sales Top $60 Billion.” Within it, the trend toward tablet commerce was underscored, as it was evident that consumers appreciate the larger screen device for their shopping experience.

This trend toward tablet commerce shopping could be important insight for retailers.

The report reveals findings through surveys of 3,492 consumers that were conducted in June 2012, as well as the survey of an another 3,285 people last year in July. Yet another 3,509 people were also surveyed in November 2013 in order to generate the data seen in this research.

Executive vice president and research director of mobile at Javelin Research, Mary Monahan, explained that the mobile payments market has been surveyed by her company for about six years now, but that it has only been for the last two years that they have compiled historical trend data. The reason is that the survey in 2012, the questions on the survey were changed, making it so that the results from previous years could not be compared other than to an anecdotal level.

The survey results from 2013 showed a solid distinction in which retailers can find important insight, said Monahan. She pointed out that consumers are choosing tablet commerce to an increasing degree when they are shopping online on mobile devices. She stated that “Tablets played a dominant role in mobile shopping this year, accounting for approximately one-half of all mobile sales.”

Last year, tablets brought in $28.7 billion in mcommerce, which is five times the total of $5.1 billion that had been brought in the year before. Considering the level of penetration that smartphones have when compared to that of their larger screen counterparts, this figure is very interesting and shows that consumers find that tablet commerce offers something above and beyond what their cell phones are providing.

In the United Kingdom, the average 2013 spent over mobile commerce was £199.

Different mcommerce trends have become quite commonplace in the United Kingdom with four out of every ten smartphone owners having made a direct purchase through their smartphones and one in six have said that they have taken part in showrooming.

Among shoppers in the United Kingdom, 55 percent have used their mobile devices in store.

While in store, mcommerce activity often consisted of price comparisons, online. This was the case among 54 percent of the people who used their mobile devices while in brick and mortar shops. Another 41 percent had taken pictures so that they would be able to view them in the future. Forty six percent would research the items that they were seeing live in the store. One in every six were “showrooming”, which involves checking out an item in a store in person, but then using the smartphone or tablet to find a better price for it online and purchase it there, instead.

This mcommerce data was based on a survey of 1,000 owners of smartphones in the United Kingdom.

The research was published in a report called “’Agile Consumer 2013”. It was conducted by Cheil Worldwide. It also determined that half of all users of smartphones and tablets had shopping in mind when they purchased their mobile devices.

According to Simon Hathaway, the president of shopper marketing and retail operations at Cheil Worldwide, “The smartphone has become a key element of how we shop, and all evidence points to it having been a bumper post-Christmas sales period for m-commerce.” He added that there has been a near doubling in the amount of time that is spent purchasing products and services over smartphones over the last five years.

Hathaway also stated that even when the phone is not being used for direct mcommerce purchases, it is still a part of the buying process as consumers use it to compare, research, and seek the opinions of others. This, he said, is changing the retail experience entirely “as we become smartphone-focused shoppers – or what we’re calling ‘Agile Consumers’.”