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Survey says mobile use to be high this holiday season

The report found shoppers are using their phones mostly to compare pricing and read product reviews, but retailers' tech-enabled associates are using mobile devices primarily for transactional purposes.

November 11, 2014

A recent CFI Group study says mobile use is expected to be higher than ever before during this year's holiday shopping season, but retailers are not prepared to meet customers' mobile needs. According to "Holiday Shopping 2014: Mobile on the Rise," which surveyed 1,000 consumers, 70 percent of consumers have used a smartphone to make a purchase in the last six months, up from 59 percent in 2013. Additionally, 41 percent of consumers said they plan on making even more purchases with their smartphones in 2015.

"We're witnessing an unprecedented rise in the popularity of mobile shopping, and that is likely to increase as shoppers turn to their devices at home and in brick-and-mortar stores this holiday season," CFI Group CEO Sheri Petras said. "A strong mobile strategy will be the determining factor between this year's retail winners and losers."

The report found shoppers are using their phones mostly to compare pricing and read product reviews, but retailers' tech-enabled associates are using mobile devices primarily for transactional purposes. The data find 41 percent of tech interactions with customers merely facilitated checkout processes. For shoppers that received assistance from a tech-enabled associate, only 24 percent received assistance comparing store pricing to Web pricing and only 25 percent received assistance to check competitive pricing. Only 16 percent of associates were able to access product reviews on a customer's behalf.

With little or ineffective internal mobile device use from store associates, the study finds retailers must maximize consumers' self-service mobile options to be successful this holiday season by creating functional, easy-to-use mobile applications and websites. A full 54 percent of consumers say they use both mobile commerce sites and applications on their smartphones, though consumers report a 2:1 preference for mobile websites over applications.