Today I had the opportunity to listen in on the Webinar Happy
Holidays or Not: Mobile Lessons Learned, and Best Practice for 2010.
The webinar was interesting and provided some good facts
about how the mobile phone assisted the 2009 holiday shopping season.It was truly a global trend according
to e-Rewards and TNS international, who reported that over 50% of Internet users
worldwide used their mobile phone to support shopping in some capacity.
Some of the trends that have become clear are that mobile shopping
will not be the complete solution.It is an enabler of many different activities involved in the overall
shopping and purchasing experience.
Of the users that utilized their mobile phone for a least
one shopping related activity, Asia-Pacific shoppers lead the world by a
comfortable margin (78%), followed by Latin America (62.4%), Europe (49.4%),
and North America (45.1%)
The top mobile shopping activities were:
Called to ask someone about a product they might purchase
Texted to ask someone about a product they might purchase
Sent a picture of a product they might purchase
Used mobile phone to access Internet to look at product
reviews or other product information
Used mobile phone to access Internet to compare prices
Used mobile phone to access Internet to get coupons or
special offers while shopping
Made an Internet purchase directly on the mobile phone
Although
it may be too early to say that 2009 was the tipping point for mobile shopping
and the related activities, it is clear the mobile phone will continue to enhance
and enable shopping in the coming years.
According
to a coordinated “store systems study” by RIS and IHL group, retailers in North
America in the next 12 months will be rapidly offering additional mobile
shopping information. Listed below, in order of priority, retailers will be
adding the following mobile technology to enable shopping:
Product
Information
Coupons
Mobile
Ordering
Stock
Check
Price
Comparison
Payments
All
of this data leads to the establishment of best practices by retailers eager to
offer their customers mobility in shopping in 2010.The best bet for retailers appears to be to pick a simple
and straight forward way to help enable customers to utilize their mobile
device when shopping, rather than attempt to build and end-to-end mobile
shopping solution.
Consumers
are not going to use their mobile phones to complete 100% of their purchases,
but retailers who are able to provide customers with mobile enablement along
the way will generally complete more purchases.
