January 12, 2010
By the ZippyCart Shopping Carts Content Team
People have been shopping on their mobile phones in Europe and Asia for the past few years, but it is only slowly catching on in the United States. Recently Motorola sponsored a poll of e-Rewards and TNS of approximately 4,500 shoppers from 11 different countries to determine how mobile phones were used for holiday shopping. In the poll, U.S. residents made up about 45% of the total audience. Not only did holiday shoppers use their phone for comparison shopping and purchasing items, but they also took photos or accessed coupons online. Roughly 64% of the consumers polled between 18 and 34 had used their mobile phone to shop online in the past two weeks, while only 30% or so of people over age 50 used their mobile phone for shopping. As more smart phones come onto the market, more consumers get their hands on them and get accustomed to being able to shop online. The technology and ecommerce efforts are also improving in the mobile commerce space everyday which makes 2010 an exciting year for shopping via mobile phones.
Another factor that is bringing more people onto their mobile phones for shopping is the ease in which they can find online coupons to ensure they get the best deal. This means that online coupon sites have an opportunity to gain from this increase in mobile commerce as well.
Almost all major online retailers are now looking at their mobile commerce efforts now so they can determine how to best improve them over the coming months to be prepared for the 2010 holiday shopping season. If online ecommerce sites do not improve their mobile efforts this year, then they are likely to miss out on attracting many young shoppers to their online store. Ebay has reported some amazing success in 2009 with their online ecommerce app, which has resulted in many other companies working to step up their game for 2010.
Nick was born and raised in California, but has been working the dot com scene in Seattle for many years. He co-founded ZippyCart back in 2009, and now works here full-time. Nick wears many hats at ZippyCart, including producing content for our Ecommerce News blog. Nick loves photography and the outdoors, so when not working on ZippyCart you can find him out and about in Seattle.
