Survey: 45 Million US Customers Shopped On Their Smartphones In June

by Mike on August 16, 2012

Moving forward, Facebook has publicly stated that one of their strategic interests is in the area of mobile devices and one of the reasons for this is the rate at which this area is growing. Mobile devices have expanded well beyond their original purpose of simply making phone calls.

Today, mobile devices are a means to stay connected with social networks, surf the Internet and of course, shop. In fact shopping on a mobile device has become easier over time as software developers try and streamline the process from shopping online to paying for your goods electronically. With new apps coming out routinely, customers have shown their interest in trying the new apps and this interest continues to be seen through the Nielsen surveys.

In fact, the June 2012 survey shows that 45 million US mobile phone owners reached for their phone to make use of an application that can be found within the June 2012 Shopping/Commerce category. Over the course of a month, these apps were used on average about 17 times per month. eBay and Amazon have always been big online retailers and as to be expected, these sites saw considerable traffic through the shopping apps with Amazon receiving 12 million unique visitors in June while eBay had 13 million unique visitors.

According to the Director of Telecom Insights at Nielsen, Don Kellogg, retail outlets are recognizing that customers are looking for mobile phone apps that can be used to “enhance their shopping experience” and the Nielsen survey does seem to back this comment. However, interestingly enough, there is another Nielsen survey that gives a bit of conflicting information, showing that customers have a preference for a retailer’s mobile webpage over apps. Regardless of which survey is correct, one things is for sure and that is mobile shopping is growing.

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