Shoppers Use Mobile For In-Store Comparisons

New data collected in a survey by online and mobile publishing and advertising company Opera Mediaworks back in September reveals interesting trends among mobile users as they shop in-store.

Here are some of the key findings.

Perhaps the most striking result is that 47 percent of mobile users ages 14 and older will use their mobile device to research competitor store pricing in-store when shopping for the holidays. And 36 percent of respondents claimed they would use their mobile device in-store to look up product reviews before purchasing.

About 30 percent of consumers said they planned to use their mobile device to sign up and receive in-store promotions and discounts. Additionally, 16 percent of consumers plan to use their phones to scan QR codes.

Mobile has grown as a means of purchase, couponing, door-to-store and in-store research in recent years. And while a BDO survey from October found that nearly 60 percent of marketers plan to leverage mobile in their marketing strategies this holiday season, the same survey also shows that just 12 percent of retail marketers in the U.S. plan to use flash sales and daily deals as a mobile marketing tactic this holiday season. Further, only 8 percent of marketers plan to use mobile coupons this holiday season.

But mobile coupon use may be more popular and prevalent than marketers expect. Consider that eMarketer estimates that there are close to 130 million digital coupon users in the U.S. as of October 2016. And According to the 2016 Purse String Survey done by Valassis earlier this year, more than 70 percent of consumers report they have looked for coupons or offers while in-store via their mobile device. For millennials, that number is more like 90 percent.

Still, retailers expect to rake in the cash this year. The BDO survey also found retailers projected an average 4.7 percent sales growth over the holiday season, with eCommerce growth projections above 17 percent on average.