Survey: Locating Stores Is Primary Mobile Shopping Activity

This article is part of Marketing Land’s Holiday Retailer series.

As with other holiday related surveys being released almost daily, new consumer data from shopping site Retale (1,000 U.S. adults) argue that consumers will spend more money on shopping this year. And much of that spending will be influenced by mobile.

Earlier this week AppLovin projected that 30 percent of Cyber Monday e-commerce transactions would happen via mobile devices. However on Twitter Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore, expressed skepticism about that figure (suggesting it would be more like 15 percent).

Impossible. Will be ~15% RT @lfaguer: 30% of Cyber Monday purchases from mobile? source @Marketingland @Mowingo @adtech booth 616 #adtechNY

— Gian Fulgoni (@gfulgoni) November 5, 2014

Whatever the ultimate percentage of transactions are mobile, there’s no debate that mobile devices will loom large in consumer shopping research. Retale’s data reinforce what we’ve seen in multiple recent surveys and forecasts.

Source: Retale

Among those that own smartphones or tablets, nearly three-fourths (73 percent) said they would use mobile devices to shop this year. The anticipated mobile use cases were the following:

• Finding deals (97 percent)
• Comparing prices (96 percent)
• Researching products (96 percent)
• Accessing coupons (92 percent)
• Finding stores (89 percent)
• Buying directly from the device (85 percent)

Survey respondents said they will be using mobile devices for both in-store and “out of store” research (home, on the go).

Source: Retale

The survey also found that 22 percent of respondents would shop online only this year. A roughly equivalent number (24 percent) said they would shop exclusively in physical stores, offline. But the remaining 54 percent, as one might expect, reported they would shop both in stores and online.

While more people have smartphones than tablets — it’s not clear if the data are weighted to account for  this — smartphones are the preferred device for mobile shopping and research, according to the survey. That makes sense given that they’re more versatile than tablets, which tend to be used predominantly if not exclusively at home.

The main shopping activity on smartphones, according to the study, is locating stores. That’s followed by seeking out deals and coupons. The top use of tablets is researching products online, much like a PC. Comparing prices is next in order. Smartphones are also used for product research and even more widely for comparing prices (probably via showrooming).

As final matter, the survey also reflected modest differences between iPhone/iOS and Android users, which comprised 89 percent of the survey population:

• iOS users were slightly more likely to conduct m-commerce (89 percent vs. 85 percent)
• iOS users will spend somewhat more than Android users on holiday shopping this year

About The Author

Greg Sterling

Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog, Screenwerk, about connecting the dots between digital media and real-world consumer behavior. He is also VP of Strategy and Insights for the Local Search Association. Follow him on Twitter or find him at Google+.