The number of people using their mobiles for shopping in the countdown to Christmas more than doubled between 2009 and last year, according to research.
Nearly half (49%) of all shoppers surveyed said they’d used their mobile to visit an online shop, compared to just 23% in 2009, a study by customer experience analytics firm ForeSee found.
Rising confidence in mobile purchases.
What’s more, it seems shoppers are feeling more confident about using their phone for purchases, with a further 28% saying they plan to go ‘mobile shopping’ in the future.
All this adds up to more than three-quarters of British phone users who are open to taking the strain out of trudging around the shops by doing it on their mobile. It’s a convincing figure – and more evidence of how our phones can help us do essential tasks on the move.
The findings were revealed in a study of 10,000 visitors to the UK’s biggest e-retail websites in December.
Computer-based shopping is still most popular.
Unsurprisingly, the most popular way to go virtual shopping remains the home computer (90%), which is great news for mobile broadband users. And it looks as though tablets are catching on too, with 5% of respondents saying they used one of these to browse and buy online.
The survey also found that shoppers are generally more satisfied with traditional online shops, as opposed to mobile sites and apps, which is a big incentive for retailers to improve these areas.
The future of mobile shopping.
We’ve all had bad experiences trying to access shopping websites on our phones – but the good news is that retailers are fast improving their mobile websites. And as for shopping apps, there are some tremendous ones out there, from Amazon to ASOS.
"The research clearly found that the use of mobile phones to access companies' websites, mobile websites and applications for shopping purposes is increasing dramatically in the UK," said Larry Freed, CEO at ForeSee.
"It is no longer acceptable for a retailer to have a substandard mobile site no matter how good their traditional site is. If shoppers aren't having a good mobile experience with a given retailer, they will simply go elsewhere."
