Mobile commerce is undoubtedly on the rise, and mobile devices are an increasingly important touch point for retailers. According to recent survey findings from GE Capital Retail, 61% of respondents have performed at least a single shopping-related task on their mobile phone, and 36% have shopped on their smartphone at some point during the last 3 months. The research indicates that offers delivered to mobile devices can influence shopping behavior: 40% of respondents said they would shop a retailer more often if it delivered such offers.
That might speak more to the power of offers than to mobile’s influence, although the ubiquity and always-on nature of the devices are alluring to retailers seeking to reach receptive shoppers. The GE survey indicates that almost three-quarters of respondents regularly take advantage of offers, and about 7 in 10 are more likely to make a purchase if they have a coupon. Those results bring to mind recent survey findings from Synquera, which showed that consumers believe that promotions bring them back in-store and drive impulse purchases. While that study indicated that most shoppers are receptive to offers delivered by email and traditional mail, the GE results suggest that a significant proportion of shoppers also welcome offers delivered to their mobile devices. Indeed, recent survey results from Placecast show that the proportion of mobile owners interested in receiving permission-based offers is rising quickly.
Separately, the GE study finds that one-quarter of shoppers conduct research online before making a purchase, a seemingly small proportion. And then there’s this, which lands in the “arbitrary statistics” category: 46% of shoppers will conduct online research before making a purchase at the price threshold of $116. The suggestion, of course, is that the higher the price, the more likely the consumer is to conduct online research. A recent study has similarly shown this to be the case for mobile shoppers conducting research while in-store.
About the Data: The study, conducted by the Analytics Center of Excellence and Market Research Team of GE Capital’s Retail Finance business, explored the mobile shopping habits of 5,926 consumers in the second quarter of 2013. Online survey respondents included 4,708 GE Capital Retail Bank (GECRB) accountholders and nearly one-third were random shoppers, all who have shopped in at least one of the following retail categories in the past six months: apparel, appliance and electronics, department stores, home furnishings, home improvement, mass merchandiser, oil and gas, sporting goods, toys, warehouse club, and Web-only.
