News

Shoppers who use mobile apps made 30 percent more store visits this holiday season

January 8, 2014

Mobile retail marketing firm Digby has revealed in-depth analysis of the holiday visit patterns of millions of shoppers with registered devices and retailer mobile apps across tens of thousands of brick-and-mortar stores from Nov. 25 to Dec. 26. Digby found that retail's most loyal customers flocked to stores in higher numbers during the 2013 holiday shopping season, a 29.6 percent increase in total visits compared to the 2012 holiday season.

Digby observed this year's holiday shopping behavior through Localpoint, its location-enabled mobile platform that it says helps retailers and brands engage with their most loyal customers at the right time and place, all through the retailer's branded mobile app. Localpoint's Analytics module gives Digby's retail customers insight into shopper traffic patterns at their brick and mortar store locations including: store visits, return visits and dwell time.

Despite industry news that holiday retail traffic declined from last year, Localpoint data shows shoppers who hold retail mobile apps — retailers' most loyal customers — were more active than regular shoppers, as Digby saw a 29.6 percent increase in brick and mortar store traffic this holiday season.

"This means that shoppers with branded mobile apps behave differently than other shoppers — they're likely to be much more active during the holiday than non app-holding shoppers and spend disproportionately more money," said David Sikora, CEO and founder of Digby. "Retailers have a significant opportunity here to positively impact their most loyal shoppers' in-store experiences. These are the shoppers on which retailers should focus."

Localpoint Analytics also showed that many shoppers made repeat visits during the shopping season, with 47 percent returning to the same retailer two or more times. Many customers had more than one retailer in mind when shopping during the holidays, with 50 percent of loyal shoppers visiting two or more separate retail stores.

In-store dwell times

Localpoint Analytics data reports an average of 51-minute dwell times among shoppers during the holiday shopping season. On average, Digby found:

• two percent of shoppers were in and out of stores in 5–30 minutes;
• ninety-four percent were "curious" shoppers who lingered for 31–60 minutes; and
• 4 percent were browsers, who stayed from 60–90 minutes.

Localpoint Analytics data found the holiday season's busiest shopping days were Nov. 29 and Dec. 14. On Nov. 29, store visits peaked at 11 a.m.

Read more about consumer behavior.