Mobile Is Starting To Propel Retail

Based on new data from Nielson, mobile platforms are starting to affect commerce more and more everyday. 79% of respondents in their recent survey said they had shopped with their smartphone or tablet. And when it comes time to make the purchase, 42% of tablet owners said they purchased items on their device, while 29% of smartphone owners went ahead and made the purchase on their phone.

Due to the differences in form factor, we are seeing differences in how each device is used relative to commerce. More portable, smartphones are being used for in-store research and handling tasks on the go. For things like finding a store we see a strong difference with 73% of smartphone owners using their devices for this versus 42% of tablet owners. Smartphones are also regularly used for shopping lists (42% versus 16% on tablets). We see similar differences when it comes to mobile coupons (32% v 11%).

Information like this is very helpful when designing mobile apps for your business as you can cater to the natural tendencies of users. You see some areas of usage that are strong on both devices, such as for price-checking where we see numbers like 62% for smartphones versus 52% on tablets. Both devices are regularly used for research before a purchase, with people preferring the tablet 66% over the smartphone at 57%. Tablet owners are also more likely to read product reviews by a small margin of 56% versus 45% for smartphones.

These results are not that surprising considering the growth of usage of these devices. In light of this savvy businesses are building mobile applications to meet these usage trends and propel their brands. Keep in mind that there are many shopping scenarios.  Tablet applications are perfect for preshopping research while smartphone applications should be designed with features catering to shoppers that are on the go.