New research released today shows that consumers in the United States are not adopting mobile shopping as fast as those in other countries.
According to a report from Havas Worldwide, in partnership with Market Probe International, just 16 percent of US online consumers have used a mobile device to shop online, far short of consumers in emerging markets such as China (50 percent) and India (42 percent).
The study recognizes the trend toward “showrooming” as a global phenomenon. Globally, 43 percent of those surveyed have used a smartphone to check for a better price or product reviews online while shopping for a product in a store. The practice is standard in China (74 percent), India (62 percent), and Singapore (58 percent). Yet, in the United States, less than one-third of consumers (32 percent) have used a mobile phone for comparison shopping or research while browsing a brick-and-mortar retailer.
Matt Weiss, global chief marketing officer of Havas Worldwide, said the study explores how consumers are moving on from the last decade’s relatively simple and static model of digital commerce to the more complex and dynamic systems of m-shopping, using a mix of fixed and mobile devices.
“This shift is most pronounced in Asia, where wider adoption of m-shopping is giving brands and developers great incentive to push through new mobile-centric services. They’re well placed to be ahead of the curve in the coming generations of m-shopping technologies and systems,” Weiss said in a statement.
The study also suggests that Americans are slow to react to the retailers efforts to bring smarpthones into the point-of-sale transactions. Only 26 percent of US consumers are comfortable purchasing products with their smartphones. Conversely, in China (64 percent) and India (54 percent) the majority of consumers are comfortable doing so.
Marianne Hurstel, vice president of Havas Worldwide’s BETC and global chief strategy officer of the company said that brands need to understand that mobile technologies are far more than just desktop digital in a handier format, especially in markets where desktop is not as common.
“They are radically changing the consumer-brand relationship. Mobile devices provide each consumer with a personal 24/7 media space in which they control who and what appears—although, as we have learned of late, apparently not who is monitoring their activities,” Hurstel said. “These devices foster expectations of easy access to information, worthwhile interactions, and immediate responses from their brand partners. And they create what may seem like erratic behavior as consumers repeatedly check their mobile devices and change their courses of action on the fly.”