This week, I attended the “Cutting Edge” track at the Shop.org Annual Summit. Stellar speakers, great conversations, excellent audience questions – in other words, the perfect venue for sparking a lot of really interesting ideas, balanced with very practical advice from the speakers. The first session specifically explored the role of mobile in retail, with some great speakers (Fandango’s Ted Hong, Harrah’s Neal Narayani, Moosejaw’s Gary Wohlfeill, and moderator Mickey Alam Khan) discussing their experiences and lessons learned in mobile commerce.
As part of the September 2009 American Pulse survey, BIGresearch asked consumers on behalf of Shop.org how they’re using mobile devices to help them shop. As one might expect, it’s still very much an emerging tool for shoppers, but if the results are indicative of where things are heading, retailers planning a mobile commerce strategy should keep in mind what consumers told us:
Who’s using mobile devices. Of the 6,976 consumers surveyed, a little over two-thirds noted that they regularly use a mobile phone / device such as an iPhone, Blackberry, or similar. Make that closer to three-quarters for women, people making over $50K per year, and consumers aged 18 to 34.
Mobile shopping alerts. Of those consumers who said they do use a mobile phone / device regularly, the vast majority noted that they had never used that device to receive alerts about specials or coupons from retailers. When probed how they would like to sign up for these kinds of alerts, three quarters flatly said they didn’t see themselves ever signing up for them… except for consumers aged 18 to 34, where just about half thought they wouldn’t sign up (i.e., the balance — not quite half — thought they *would* do so). And among those consumers who were interested in signing up for mobile alerts, about half didn’t have a particular preference for how they would sign up, while others said they’d prefer to text a short code to get a link, more so than typing a mobile Web site address into their mobile browser.
Shopping features that resonate with mobile users. For now, it looks like consumers aged 18 to 34 are a retailer’s best bet for shopping info via mobile device. Approximately half of 18 to 34 year olds surveyed noted that they would find very or somewhat useful product and price comparison information, store information (including location and hours), price information, in-store events and specials, in-store product availability, and coupons. In other words, they are using their mobile devices to shop offline more efficiently and with better information. Less important to the 18-34 year old crowd (only about one third of this group) via their mobile device are access to online specials, consumer ratings and reviews, or gift registries and wish lists for friends and family members.
And while women overall might still be catching up to the 18-34 year old group in this area, they see many of the same shopping features / applications as useful. (For more information about mothers online specifically – many of whom are avid mobile device users – see also the RAMA research and recap on this subject released last week.)
As always, Shop.org Members can access the full results of this survey from the Research & Resources section of the Web site.