Amidst headlines dominated by the NFC-less iPhone 5, Square’s big funding and new mobile payments technologies, a recent study begs an interesting question:
Who’s using this technology anyway?
According to research by Deloitte, only one percent of U.K. shoppers have ever made an in-store purchase using a mobile device – an astonishing number when you consider the time and resources companies spend on inventing and modifying mobile payments methods.
But while the volume mobile transactions may be surprisingly low right now, mobile’s influence on purchasing is still huge. In other words, just because consumers aren’t making purchases from mobile apps or sites doesn’t mean those tools aren’t influencing what they buy.
Let’s take a look at some of the study’s more interesting findings.
American Impact
According to the study, mobile apps and websites accounted for a 5 percent bump in U.S. retail sales and a 6 percent hike in the U.K. That still led to a bigger impact on this side of the pond, though, as the U.S. percentage equated to $159 billion in-store sales, while the U.K. boost equated to a mere $24.7 billion.
Mobile’s Just Getting Started
By 2016, Deloitte forecasts that the smartphone impact on retail in the U.S. will rise to 17 to 21 percent, which would equate to $628 to $782 million. In the U.K., the predicted range shifts to 15 to 18 percent for $57 to $79 billion. It’s clear Deloitte believes mobile apps and sites are the infancy of their usefulness.
What the U.K. Can Tell Us
The study delved deeper into U.K. numbers than U.S. ones, but he findings are interesting nonetheless. Forty-six percent of smartphone owners use their devices to research items before or during a visit to a store, and 74 percent of those who view a mobile app or site for a specific brand or retailer make a purchase. Even if they just browsed and didn’t reach a target app/site, two-thirds of smartphone users still bought something.
To see more statistics from the study, click here.
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