Mobile shopping is not one activity - Mobile-shopping behaviors include using one's phone to facilitate any part of the shopping experience -- from comparing products, evaluating prices, and selecting where to buy, to sharing product photos, tweeting price details, and actually completing the transaction. The mobile shopping experience can also include activities post-purchase, such as returning or servicing a product.
Arc Worldwide conducted a nationwide quantitative survey of 1,800 mobile-phone owners, followed by qualitative research using webcams, Flip video cameras, and shop-alongs as shoppers utilized their phones in the shopping experience. Two key findings cast a light on who is mobile shopping and how, and what it means for the future.
Lights shall inherit the future -Mobile shoppers fall into two groups. Heavy mobile shoppers comprise about 20% of all mobile shoppers and drive 80% of the activity volume. Light mobile shoppers comprise the rest. Heavies love their phones, using them to share photos, download music, and check the news. They also love any form of shopping, whether it be at home, on a computer, or in the store. It's not surprising that they really enjoy the nexus -- indexing 10 times higher than lights in mobile shopping. Heavy mobile shoppers know and use mobile as a specialized tool for shopping. Light mobile shoppers have a much narrower outlook toward mobile with regard to shopping. They see it primarily as an inferior portable computer, and therefore primarily use it in the car and on the go. Sixty-two percent of light mobile shoppers told us it was just easier to go online from a computer vs.