Optism™

Mobile users want a better shopping experience was the key takeaway from a report by advertising agency JWT, who surveyed 465 US mobile users about their shopping experiences during the 2011 holiday season. The survey reported that a majority of the respondents are now using their phones to conduct shopping tasks like getting price and product information, conferring with friends about product choices, sharing product information with the social networks and making mobile purchases.

The goal of the survey was to better understand how consumers were using their mobile devices in retail settings, how they were using their mobile phones throughout the entire buying cycle and how they were using their mobiles in other settings like at home or at work.

The report identified 5 learnings.

1. Mobile Shopping is Not About Purchasing

While mobile shoppers are using their phones to support their shopping experience, only a small minority are using their phones to actually purchase products. Security was cited as the key reason for not making mobile purchases. According to the survey, people are using mobile frequently in different places (stores, friend/family’s house, at work).

2. Men are Using Mobile More Than Women To Shop

According to the survey, the percentage of men using their mobile phone was equal to or higher than women for every shopping task. In fact, the percentage of men using their phones to get more product information and make a mobile purchase was 15-20% higher than women. 44% of women surveyed did not make a mobile holiday purchase, while 19% of men did not make a purchase.

3. Mobile Shopping Experience during the Holidays was Positive

Almost 70% of mobile users surveyed say that they are satisfied with their mobile shopping experience, as users enjoyed skipping crowded holiday lines and being able to purchase while the shopping was “top of mind”. Areas of concern are security, lack of apps, lack of product information and mobile site navigation.

 4. Sometimes mobile devices are preferred over the computer

While mobile is the primary device used outside of home and work, retailers should look at mobile sites now as a new shopping channel not a supplemental outlet.

 5. Young People are Buying Different Things via Mobile

When asked if they would have purchased the same items online as they did via mobile, the results were split mostly between “All items” and “Some Items”. However, segmenting the results by age saw that people under 30, were 2.5 times more likely to choose “some items” over “all items”. We can infer that younger people are using mobile as more of a browsing device and are open to learning about and purchasing new items while older people are using mobile as another shopping option.

What does this mean for retailers and brands?

First, mobile has now come into its own and should be regarded as a serious and separate channel. Second, while mobile users are for the most part satisfied, consumer expectations will go up dramatically as users will not tolerate a substandard mobile shopping experience. Finally, brands need to recognize that mobile users behave differently across age and gender. As brands start gearing up for the next holiday shopping season, they should heed the results from this excellent report.

Social Media’s influence across the ecommerce landscape has been profound. With so many choices and conflicting information about which products to choose, consumers are increasingly relying on their social networks both off-line and online to query their community about the right product and service choices. I’ve done it myself and asked my Facebook crew for recommendations on which gaming system to get for my kids. Why did I do it? Because it’s real-time feedback and it makes my life easier. In addition to listening, consumers are also broadcasting their recommended products out to their community. No matter whether they are listening or broadcasting, consumers have become more sophisticated and more careful about their shopping choices — using all available options.

Mobile has accelerated this trend by allowing retailers and other companies to easily reward this word-of-mouth behavior with non-currency rewards. One of the experts on this new trend is Liz Crawford who was recently interviewed by Mike Lewis of Business2Community in an article entitled, The Shopper Economy: 5 Questions with Liz Crawford. Crawford identifies a new dynamic where a shopper can actually earn value in exchange for one of four behaviors: paying attention (e.g. watching a video), participating (e.g. demoing a product), advocating (e.g. writing a review on Yelp), or committing (e.g. participating in brand-sponsored charity event). The rewards can be loyalty points, free mobile minutes, discounts, social recognition or free products like a phone.

Crawford says, “I thought it was fascinating that digital technology, especially mobile technology, was enabling new kinds of transactions between buyers and sellers.  In addition to shoppers purchasing brands, brands were purchasing shopper behavior. I believe this is a relatively new phenomenon.”

Crawford has a new book, The Shopper Economy: The New Way to Achieve Marketplace Success by Turning Behavior into Currency. In the book, Crawford provides detailed examples of Brands, like American Express, that understand consumers are evaluating many products. They know that if they can incentify people towards evaluating their products, they will have a better chance of selling it. Some of the companies helping brands provide behavioral currency include Foursquare, shopkick, SCVNGR and Checkpoint. shopkick gives you kickbucks just for entering the store without buying anything and then you can redeem these kickbucks for gifts like iTunes gift cards, movie tickets, store gift cards and even make donations to charities.

This is a fast-moving trend that will only grow as consumers increase their use of mobile. Crawford says, “Shoppers will become increasingly sophisticated in understanding the worth of their labor.  This means that they will evaluate transactions with brands and retailers with a sharper eye to their own advantage.” Marketers pay special attention to Crawford’s words as the consumer is smarter and has more power than ever before. On the opposite side of the equation, it makes you wonder if people will behave a certain way in order to get rewards thus creating artificial brand advocates.

What do you think about rewarding shopping behaviors? Is it something that you will do or have done? Let us know by leaving a comment or participating in our Facebook Poll. If you could earn something in exchange for sharing your shopping behaviors such as “paying attention” or “promoting” a brand’s product/service, which option would you be most likely to choose?

Recently, I discussed that the wrong questions were being asked about the development of the mobile wallet – namely, that that there was not enough industry focus on the needs of the consumer. This week, I focus on the privacy of the consumer and how much personal information a consumer is willing to give up for convenience.

The practice of gathering Big Data by marketers will impact the consumer on two fronts; their privacy and the ability for brands and businesses to deliver a better shopping experience for them. Marketers have always had data on consumers, except the amount of data was not as big and it was fairly anonymous. The data was more about an average person’s behavior over a specific period of time within a certain demographic. For the most part, marketers could blast advertising messages and expect fairly consistent results.

Now that has all changed.

The internet, social media and mobile have changed the equation. We are not passive customers anymore. We validate product claims on Yelp, Consumer Reports and Facebook. We pose questions to others and get almost immediate feedback. We make “individual” decisions that can’t always be predicted or calculated. We are opting-out of traditional marketing and opting-in to programs from brands and businesses that are asking us for our permission and respecting our privacy choices.

In an article last week in Marketingland entitled Give It Up For Mobile Data, Rachel Pasqua of Organic discussed the battle over “big data” between consumers and marketers. She starts off by making an excellent point about the Myth of the Average Consumer.

• “So I’m actually not the average consumer. But then neither are you. No one is. The average consumer is an urban myth– which makes the traditional tactics we use to target them semi-effective, at best. They didn’t coin the phrase “banner blindness” for nothing. I block out a good 95% of the ads I see because they are meaningless to me.”

Pasqua dismisses the concept of the average consumer because privacy comes down to the decisions each individual makes and each decision is different. Every second, a consumer is faced with the choice of whether to give up their privacy in exchange for information. There are three values; the consumer’s desire to protect his or her privacy, the value of the offer and the level of trust the consumer has of the business. If the value of the offer is greater than the value of privacy and the level of trust does not impact the offer then the transaction is completed. If not, no deal.

Pasqua says that Google Maps is good example of this. The service has completed millions of these “privacy” transactions, as the value of not getting lost is more valuable than the desire to keep your location secret from Google. Now that the consumer is aware of the privacy equation, he or she can decide what information to provide, changing us from average, passive consumer to active, aware consumers making individual decisions.

Mobile takes this even farther because it increases the number of privacy transactions we are faced with every day. The weather app wants to know where I am. The travel app wants to know if I want to monitor flights to a certain city. The clothing retailer wants keep my shirt size and my kids’ size.

Brands, businesses and mobile apps have a responsibility to inform the consumer about the data they are collecting and how they are using it. And provide this privacy information in a way that consumers can truly understand – not pages and pages of small print and complex language.

At Optism, we call this behavior Thinking Human and we have outlined best practices about how being transparent with consumers pays off in the end. By being clear about the ramifications of the privacy decisions one makes, it lessens the chance that the consumer could become disappointed by the experience. Additionally, giving the user some control over their profile and how their information is being used improves the experience and customer relationship. This thinking helps to build trust, increasing the likelihood of additional transactions and fosters loyalty which ideally leads to more business.

Take our Facebook poll, What information are you willing to give to a company for making your life more convenient?