Convenience and mobile advertising are key drivers of mobile shopping, said Joe Laszlo, senior director of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence.
The “IAB Mobile Phone Shopping Diaries” study conducted by On Device Research also revealed that 47% of mobile commerce actions happened at home.
According to the study, 24% of consumers performed mobile commerce activities because it was the easiest way to do so, while 22% said it was because of a mobile ad. A majority of respondents, 70%, said mobile advertising is a welcomed personal invitation from brands, rather than an invasion.
The study surveyed 260 respondents who identified themselves as mobile shoppers and already owned either a smartphone or feature phone. The three-stage project began on April 15 and lasted for two days.
“The study tells me that mobile is changing shopping,” said Laszlo. “Shopping isn’t a distinct activity in the mobile world. It is something that people dabble in and [it’s] more integrated throughout the course of their day-to-day lives, when the consumer has time for it and when it fits into their day.”
Other top reasons for performing mobile commerce included boredom or filling time (21%), and that it is an activity respondents were already planning on doing (21%). Finding the best deal followed with 20% of respondents, according to the survey.
In terms of how shoppers are using their phones during the shopping process, 28% of respondents said they use phones to find product information, 18% said to find store locations and 12% said to compare prices.
Laszlo could not say why more consumers were using their mobile phones at home (47%) compared with while they were out and about (29%) or at work (10%). He said he suspects that it is due to PCs being shared at home and mobile being a natural device to use first.
“People are using mobiles for the full-range of shopping activities, including investigating products, where to buy, price-comparison and purchasing,” Laszlo said.
“When marketers are thinking about their mobile strategies, they should be thinking about all these different specific aspects of mobile and [the] different roles it plays in the full course of a product,” he added.
