Shoppers spent well over $30 billion online over this past holiday season and a large percentage of that was done via mobile devices. Often consumers will finalize online purchases via their desktop or laptop computer, but a rapidly expanding number are using mobile applications or mobile web sites while in-store and those shoppers are driving the future of mobile application commerce.
New surveys from GfKRoper and SapientNitro state that a whopping 80% of smartphone owners used their mobile devices while shopping during the 2012 holiday season. This is very solid growth for mobile shopping when compared to the past.
Other findings from these surveys include: 80% of mobile users accessed mobile applications or websites to research or browse products (15% higher than last year), 74% of mobile users completed at least one purchase via mobile device over the holidays (19% higher than the previous year) and 56% of mobile users looked to customer reviews and ratings to make a purchase decisions (16% higher than last year).
Motorola’s research suggests that younger shoppers are the most likely to use mobile devices for shopping and that only about a third of older consumers use mobile devices to shop. Their survey data indicates some of the reason behind the growth of mobile applications usage for commerce, suggesting that users often feel that they have a better chance of finding reliable information via mobile app or mobile web site than via retail employees.
Recently comScore release survey data that smartphones are now used by 55% of mobile users in Europe and by 52% of people in the United States. This works out to be over 121 million users and about half of those people reported using mobile browsers or downloading apps for a formidable market that is growing on a daily basis.
In a recent study by Tapjoy, they had found mobile commerce is expected to grow by over an astounding 300% by 2015. While many analysts are starting to focus on the upcoming shopping season where many shoppers will brave the crowds at malls and local stores preparing for the holidays, we are seeing big growth in the number number of shoppers who will turn to mobile applications and mobile web sites for holiday shopping this year – or at a minimum they will be engaging in a great deal of mobile research to assist with their shopping. According to the new study from Tapjoy, 1 in 5 apparel buyers currently uses a mobile app or web site at least daily to buy or participate in research.
Some additional findings by Tapjoy point to explosive growth in the mobile marketplace. A full 54% of Tapjoy’s customers shopped via mobile in the previous six months and 45M smartphone users looked into the shopping app category in June of 2012 with almost half of them using these mobile shopping applications. But beyond just the numbers of users, what is powerful is the frequency of use among them with an average user accessing mobile shopping apps 17 times per month. A very solid 64% of those Tapjoy polled said they are going to make mobile purchases at some point during this holiday season.
Looking at the usage patterns of users while utilizing mobile devices and applications, users are comparing prices 61 percent of the time and accessing promotions/coupons 51 percent of the time for the most active areas of usage. We also see shoppers reading reviews, scanning bar codes and taking pictures of products while shopping.
Mobile deals is a big area to keep an eye on, according to the Tapjoy report, mobile shoppers are smart shoppers and they are looking for deals. Most often they look for free shipping deals, but nearly half also look for coupons or promo deals. One item that is good to note if you are currently planning a mobile application for your business is that less than 10 percent of users view mobile product videos, so don’t worry about video content as it isn’t a key factor and it will can eat up bandwidth quickly.
If you utilize these research factors in helping to plan your mobile application it will help you key in on the areas that will be most productive for your business buy helping you match existing usage trends. Clearly given the explosive growth of mobile applications and mobile commerce, you are putting yourself at a serious disadvantage if you are not yet taking advantage of this crucial medium of communication.
Ten years ago people used cell phones to make phone calls and send text messages and that was about it, but with the modern smart phone, usage indicates much different patterns of behavior on how this communications device is utilized.
Smartphone usage in many ways mirrors daily activities. Social networks and game playing are the two busiest components of daily mobile app interaction. comScore research shows that 37% of all U.S. mobile users accessed social networks via mobile applications on their phones in May of this year and that a full 34% of all U.S. mobile consumers played games. Both of these numbers are double digit increases over what we were seeing two years ago.
Nielsen states that the minutes spent per month on mobile apps more than doubled from March 2011 to March 2012. Most of the time-consuming mobile activities such as games and social networks are accessed through mobile apps. In contrast to this their study shows that time spent on the mobile web was basically flat in terms of growth. Nielsen found that users are spending more time using mobile apps than on the mobile web with 73 percent of the time last year spent on apps. Ericsson ConsumerLab has determined that 69 percent of smartphone owners use apps daily.
One area that really stands out and is literally exploding in the United States is mobile commerce. It is expected to be a $10 billion industry this year, up from $6 billion in 2010. Nielsen research points out that 89% of smartphone owners have used their phone while shopping in stores. Smartphone users use mobile applications in a variety of different ways when it comes to retail, they access digital coupons, engage in research and read reviews, and make mobile payments.
Setting up your business in a way to capitalize on boom in mobile commerce would clearly be a wise decision. Looking at the patterns of usage and plan your mobile applications to fulfill the usage patterns that are in place and you will clearly be positioning your business ahead of your competition that is ignoring these trends.