Bill Hanifin

The Fallacy of the Connected Consumer's Love of Mobile Apps

January 20, 2012

FROM RETAILWIRE:
Many marketers appear to be making assumptions about consumer shopping preferences based on the skyrocketing adoption rates of new technology. However, a new study on the habits of "connected consumers" indicates that focusing too intently on mobile commerce apps is not fully warranted. What place do mobile tablet and smartphone apps have in the overall "e-commerce ecosystem?"      [more...]

Two variables seem important to me.

1. Does a retailer create a mobile application or enable the mobile web, i.e. make their web site work well on a small screen?

2. Is there a significant difference between targeting future hopes on smartphones or tablets?

To me, optimizing the mobile web is the foundation as it precludes making consumers download yet another app.

Screen real estate is important and the tablet should have better adoption rates for shopping than smartphones over time. The problem, tablet penetration is lagging behind phones (duh) and even if they were being adopted at equal rates, fewer consumers would find it easy to carry a tablet everywhere they go.