If you own a tablet, do you find yourself lounging on the couch, surfing through retail sites and blowing money with a few swipes and taps of the screen? Or do you wander through a store consulting your shopping list and comparing prices on your smartphone? If so, you are not alone. And the ranks of constantly connected consumers are growing. Both the tablet and its tiny cousin, the smartphone, are indeed changing our shopping habits. Nielsen has found that most smartphone and tablet owners use the devices for shopping-related activities. Of mobile shoppers, a much higher percentage of tablet owners use the devices for buying items or services than do their smartphone compatriots, and they are also slightly more prone to use their tablets for researching potential purchases. Several factors might be contributing to the faster increase in tablet-based sales. The conversion rate, or the rate at which a site visit turns into an actual purchase, is apparently higher on tablets than phones. Con tent was created by GSA C ontent Gen erator DE MO .
Perhaps the larger screen makes Web surfing and shopping a more pleasant experience, or perhaps people are more likely to use tablets when they're taking advantage of their leisure time at home, a time they are also more likely to shop online. The relative affluence of people who own tablets, especially expensive ones like the iPad, may also come into play. The average sales amount per purchase is reportedly higher on tablets than on either phones or old-school desktop and laptop computers. Additionally, eMarketer estimated that U.S. Monetate asserted that the U.S. Although online sales through traditional computers still outweigh those on mobile devices as of early 2013, and in-person shopping far surpasses e-commerce in general, mobile shopping is poised to grow and grow, especially as more people adopt Web-enabled tablets and phones. What are the pitfalls of mobile shopping? Is online shopping killing brick-and-mortar retailers? What kinds of shopping activities are happening on mobile devices? There are lots of ways to shop on tablets and shoes smartphones, including through apps or Web sites optimized for mobile devices.
To draw in would-be shoppers, some companies are offering apps for mobile devices that more closely resemble magazines or catalogs than they do traditional retailer Web sites. These allow the user to do the virtual equivalent of window-shopping, as well as create wish lists and make purchases, sometimes with even more ease than Web sites due to the high level of interactivity allowed by the touch screen. Not all retailers have apps or mobile sites, but this will likely change as more and more people shop on their devices. There are other types of apps that aid customers in their shopping activities. Digital wallets allow users to store their financial information, including credit and debit cards, and Sales use their phones to make purchases in stores in lieu of what would normally be in their wallets. These most commonly use a technology called near-field communications (NFC), which is built into some, but not all, smartphones. It allows you to tap your phone on another NFC device to exchange information and make a payment.
Google Wallet is the most well known, but there are offerings from Square, Visa, MasterCard and others. Digital wallets have not taken off quite yet, likely due to the rarity of NFC devices, scant knowledge of these services and safety fears, but they may be the wave of the future. As of 2013, iPhones do not have NFC, but Apple is reportedly working on incorporating NFC or a similar technology into upcoming iPhone models. Some retailers have their own loyalty apps, and digital wallets can also serve this function. Deal sites like Groupon also have apps that let you redeem digital coupons. You can use your mobile device during in-person shopping trips in other ways, too. People commonly use their smartphones to comparison shop while wandering brick-and-mortar stores. There are, of course, apps for this. They allow you to do everything from scan the barcode to photograph the item to speak or type its name, and will return other retailers' prices, reviews and product information.