Retailers without a mobile presence are missing out
The Vancouver Sun’s Jenny Lee has a great article out today about why retailers should be more eager to jump on the mobile shopping bandwagon.
As Lee points out, it doesn’t matter if customers are buying things with their phones, because with the proliferation of smartphones amongst today’s consumers, they’re checking prices and comparing prices between competitors — sometimes in the stores of one of those competitors.
As Lee points out, the number of consumers using mobile technology and the number of whom use their smartphones for shopping is a huge opportunity that retailers don’t want to miss out on. And the numbers are only growing:
Three times more people are using their smartphones for product research compared to last year (30 per cent in 2010 compared to 11 per cent in 2009), the [ForeSee] report said.
Most consumers used their phones to look up price information or compare products. Shoppers also used their phones to look up product specifications, read produce reviews, make purchases and find store locations.
Smartphones give retailers a chance to reach customers not only in their own physical stores, but also in their competitors’ stores, Ertell said. Indeed, the proportion of mobile shoppers who seek information from a competitor’s website while physically standing in a retailer’s store has nearly doubled since last year to 46 per cent from 25 per cent.
Use of retailer-developed mobile applications has increased seven-fold to seven per cent from one per cent, and purchasing from phones has quintupled to 11 per cent from two per cent, the report said.
While some retailers have adopted location-based advertising that shows consumers advertising and specials based on their location, ForeSee research showing that customers are actively visiting competing websites and apps means “having accessible and easy-to-use in-store comparison tools may be one way to prevent customers from turning to competitors for information and to make purchases,” Ertell said.
You can read the full article here. You can check out more details from ForeSee's report here.
