May 30, 2008
Mobile Device Users Want More and More
By Tom Ryan
While some consumers vex about all the complex gadgetry on their cell phones, an IBM survey found 80 percent of consumers are looking for more applications and services – not only for entertainment but also for basic transactional and utility purposes.
For instance, 56 percent of the 700 consumers surveyed worldwide indicated they were “interested” – either somewhat or very – in banking via mobile devices. A whopping sixty eight percent indicated they were interested in using mobile devices for maps; 55 percent to get news; 52 percent for e-mail services; 56 percent for instant messaging; and 53 percent for browsing the internet. In more pure entertainment areas, 53 percent were interested in using their mobile devices to watch TV; 41 percent to play online games; 45 percent to buy music; 44 percent to buy videos; and 41 percent in buying games.
In its survey, only 20 percent of customers indicated they were “very satisfied” with their current mobile internet services, while the remaining 80 percent were split among “somewhat satisfied (40 percent),” “somewhat dissatisfied” (12 percent), “not satisfied” (five percent) and non-users (23 percent).
Asked what’s stopping them from using mobile internet more often, too expensive (50 percent) was the most cited reason. That was followed by connection too slow (40 percent); don’t find it convenient (37 percent); tried but didn’t find it useful (17 percent); never tried it, but never felt like using mobile internet (16 percent); don’t know about it (eight percent); and don’t know how to use it (six percent).
The study, titled Go mobile, grow from IBM’s Institute for Business Value, estimates the market for mobile internet services will reach $80 billion by 2011, with increasing usage expected to fuel growth in both the provision of services and mobile internet advertising. At the same time, the number of mobile internet users worldwide is projected to approach 1 billion, a 191 percent increase from 2006 and a compound annual growth rate of 24 percent.
“Clearly the same market forces which empowered consumers to choose personal computers that were open and enabled them to customize their applications are at play in the mobile web marketplace,” said Dr. Sungyoul Lee, global consulting leader, Electronics Industry, IBM, in a statement.
Discussion Questions: How do you think the further development of mobile internet services will reshape consumer spending habits? In what ways can retailers prepare for this event? Are retailers underestimating or overestimating this opportunity?
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At least 10 years ago videos were coming out of Finland which showed mobile transactions for most every kind of kiosk. Yet here in America I have yet to see any of this technology. In fact, here in Los Angeles most every vending machine, parking meters, and laundromats only accept quarters. Regardless of the technology capabilities and widespread adoption among younger users, so long as America depends on writing checks and lawyers and lawsuits get in the way, it will be a long wait until mobile options take hold.
If mobile phone manufacturers were to equip their devices with bar code readers capable of reading the YottaMark HarvestMark unit traceability system, as written about recently in The Packer, then consumers would be able to know precisely which grower, and from which field, their fresh produce came from.
In addition to easing consumer fears over food safety, this would become a powerful marketing tool to create a bond between the grower and end-user.
Some stores already have kiosks that allow consumers to scan an item and see more information, including recipes and origin. Think of what happens when you empower consumers to do this on their own as they stroll through the store.
Why are we taking a survey of 700 people worldwide to be representative of billions of mobile phone users? In reality, the “survey” showed little that was not already known.
For years consumers have wanted convergence into an easy-to-use device. Yes, they want banking, purchasing, renting, directions, etc, but they don’t want to pay for it or the high speed connections necessary to deliver many of these services.
Mobile technology is making rapid advances. The iPhone was a huge leap forward. Look for more advances in the coming months and years. As mobile phones link to bank accounts and become debit instruments, retailers should be poised to utilize the new technology and make it part of their customer information and payment systems.
Mobile phones in the shopping context are, to me, the link between the physical world and the virtual world. It is a “fourth channel” too (assuming that you count stores, online, and catalog as the other three), but because of the limited user interface inherent in phones, the medium will have more impact as that bridge than as a channel unto itself.
I’m speaking on this topic at IRCE in a couple of weeks, and there are SO many things out there that you can do today to reach consumers on their phones, and they don’t even have to be browser-based. Many innovations in customer services have been SMS-based, just to get around some of the infrastructure challenges of too few smartphones out there.
Shopping lists, access reviews, access cross-channel inventory availability, reserve or even buy a product at a store for you to pick up, download coupons, get more product information, register for events or contests–the possibilities are really only limited by our imaginations today.
Like anything, this has a learning curve. The retailers that start experimenting now have the opportunity to get ahead of the game before the mobile phone really “arrives” as a channel to communicate with consumers. If nothing else, Amazon’s Text2Buy should be a wake-up call to retailers about the importance of mobile.
The personal nature and reliance on mobile devices combined with improving user experiences will increase the opportunity for retailers to connect with their customers. One way that it will reshape consumer spending is in the form of a much more informed and savvy consumer who has a better sense of value and price across the spectrum of choices all in real time.
Retailers will need to prepare in several ways.
1. Enable both the online and in-store experience with technology that provides real time feedback to consumers whether it be price, promotion or product info in a mobile friendly manner.
2. Utilize available technologies to take in consumer inquiries and actual purchasing behaviors and optimize offers that are more relevant to what is happening in store and online.
3. Identify ways to promote cross shopping via a customer’s mobile device while they are in store making decisions.
4. Make it easy, inviting and fun for consumers to increase dialog with your brand via mobile and design new incentives to get them in the store now while they are likely on the move.
Like most innovations, some retailers will over-prepare and some will under-prepare. First mover in this space does not necessarily position a retailer as having a big advantage. In fact, many large retailers prefer to watch and learn and conduct small scale testing.
The very nature of real time sales feedback is what makes retail such an exciting industry. Mobile devices provide another dimension of feedback that may, in fact, be a very different type of shopping behavior while on the move.
Retailers need to get onto the mobile bandwagon now. Telcos are expanding services for mobile users. Subscribers can download music, watch TV shows, shop, read news, book airfare among other things. Retailers who partner up with telcos to providing on the phone shopping would benefit from this explosion of mobile offerings.
I’m seeing telcos offering packages that are more data related and offer bigger bandwidth packages to cater to the mobile phone user. Mobile phone usage is only going to grow at this point and retailers would be wise to create online stores that are specific to phone users.
Kids growing up today are so much more technology savvy than we were and use technology for everything. They’re the pioneers/trend setters in this category so it’s just a matter of time until their cell phones are the only tool they use for everything.
Look back 10 years ago…if someone told you that you would be able to take a picture on your cell phone…would you have believed them?
In the course of preparing this response I discovered the “Pew Internet Project” whose goal is described as:
“The Pew Internet Project is an initiative of the Pew Research Center, a nonprofit ‘fact tank’ that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. Pew Internet explores the impact of the internet on children, families, communities, the work place, schools, health care and civic/political life. The Project is nonpartisan and takes no position on policy issues.”
They had two recent studies that RetailWire readers will likely find interesting, one on how consumers make product choices while shopping online and another on how people feel about online shopping in general.
I got into this whole thing because I was trying to find the printed version of a study I had heard on the radio which discussed how people actually use their cell phones. We talk about a lot of “bold new uses,” yet I was amazed how few people have never merely sent a simple text message. It seems that when conducting the type of survey IBM has done here, people tend to respond based on what sounds good rather than how they will actually act. I never did find the radio survey documented, but as I recall the conclusion was that there is a lot of texting going on between a concentrated number of users. The majority of people are still using their phone primarily as a voice device.
An interesting question for many of the people surveyed by IBM would be whether they have a computer. It may turn out that the cell phone is the only means of internet access for many people. That completely changes what you need from the phone. If you also have a computer at home and use it to do many of the things mentioned then you would probably only use the phone occasionally unless it was a truly mobile need, like payments.
Folks would use cell phones for more functions if the procedures were simple. Cell phones today are harder to use than the VCRs of yesterday. Millions of people never recorded anything using their VCR because the procedures weren’t self-explanatory. I bought a new cell phone last week after visiting 6 different stores. None of the folks in 6 different stores could properly demonstrate their phones. Every store I visited was owned and operated by a national cell carrier (Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint). I visited 6 different stores because the web sites communicated poorly, the folks working in the call centers didn’t know the answers to my questions, and I don’t give up easily. Most folks just don’t have that level of persistence.
This is a major shift that will take some years to happen. The youth of today love the technology but still need to have their own income on order to affect this change in a mass way.
The “elders” of the world–anyone over 30–are now quite comfortable with computers, but their eyesight will soon start to fade, meaning the phone screen is almost useless without reading glasses.
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At least 10 years ago videos were coming out of Finland which showed mobile transactions for most every kind of kiosk. Yet here in America I have yet to see any of this technology. In fact, here in Los Angeles most every vending machine, parking meters, and laundromats only accept quarters. Regardless of the technology capabilities and widespread adoption among younger users, so long as America depends on writing checks and lawyers and lawsuits get in the way, it will be a long wait until mobile options take hold.
If mobile phone manufacturers were to equip their devices with bar code readers capable of reading the YottaMark HarvestMark unit traceability system, as written about recently in The Packer, then consumers would be able to know precisely which grower, and from which field, their fresh produce came from.
In addition to easing consumer fears over food safety, this would become a powerful marketing tool to create a bond between the grower and end-user.
Some stores already have kiosks that allow consumers to scan an item and see more information, including recipes and origin. Think of what happens when you empower consumers to do this on their own as they stroll through the store.
Why are we taking a survey of 700 people worldwide to be representative of billions of mobile phone users? In reality, the “survey” showed little that was not already known.
For years consumers have wanted convergence into an easy-to-use device. Yes, they want banking, purchasing, renting, directions, etc, but they don’t want to pay for it or the high speed connections necessary to deliver many of these services.
Mobile technology is making rapid advances. The iPhone was a huge leap forward. Look for more advances in the coming months and years. As mobile phones link to bank accounts and become debit instruments, retailers should be poised to utilize the new technology and make it part of their customer information and payment systems.
Mobile phones in the shopping context are, to me, the link between the physical world and the virtual world. It is a “fourth channel” too (assuming that you count stores, online, and catalog as the other three), but because of the limited user interface inherent in phones, the medium will have more impact as that bridge than as a channel unto itself.
I’m speaking on this topic at IRCE in a couple of weeks, and there are SO many things out there that you can do today to reach consumers on their phones, and they don’t even have to be browser-based. Many innovations in customer services have been SMS-based, just to get around some of the infrastructure challenges of too few smartphones out there.
Shopping lists, access reviews, access cross-channel inventory availability, reserve or even buy a product at a store for you to pick up, download coupons, get more product information, register for events or contests–the possibilities are really only limited by our imaginations today.
Like anything, this has a learning curve. The retailers that start experimenting now have the opportunity to get ahead of the game before the mobile phone really “arrives” as a channel to communicate with consumers. If nothing else, Amazon’s Text2Buy should be a wake-up call to retailers about the importance of mobile.
The personal nature and reliance on mobile devices combined with improving user experiences will increase the opportunity for retailers to connect with their customers. One way that it will reshape consumer spending is in the form of a much more informed and savvy consumer who has a better sense of value and price across the spectrum of choices all in real time.
Retailers will need to prepare in several ways.
1. Enable both the online and in-store experience with technology that provides real time feedback to consumers whether it be price, promotion or product info in a mobile friendly manner.
2. Utilize available technologies to take in consumer inquiries and actual purchasing behaviors and optimize offers that are more relevant to what is happening in store and online.
3. Identify ways to promote cross shopping via a customer’s mobile device while they are in store making decisions.
4. Make it easy, inviting and fun for consumers to increase dialog with your brand via mobile and design new incentives to get them in the store now while they are likely on the move.
Like most innovations, some retailers will over-prepare and some will under-prepare. First mover in this space does not necessarily position a retailer as having a big advantage. In fact, many large retailers prefer to watch and learn and conduct small scale testing.
The very nature of real time sales feedback is what makes retail such an exciting industry. Mobile devices provide another dimension of feedback that may, in fact, be a very different type of shopping behavior while on the move.
Retailers need to get onto the mobile bandwagon now. Telcos are expanding services for mobile users. Subscribers can download music, watch TV shows, shop, read news, book airfare among other things. Retailers who partner up with telcos to providing on the phone shopping would benefit from this explosion of mobile offerings.
I’m seeing telcos offering packages that are more data related and offer bigger bandwidth packages to cater to the mobile phone user. Mobile phone usage is only going to grow at this point and retailers would be wise to create online stores that are specific to phone users.
Kids growing up today are so much more technology savvy than we were and use technology for everything. They’re the pioneers/trend setters in this category so it’s just a matter of time until their cell phones are the only tool they use for everything.
Look back 10 years ago…if someone told you that you would be able to take a picture on your cell phone…would you have believed them?
In the course of preparing this response I discovered the “Pew Internet Project” whose goal is described as:
“The Pew Internet Project is an initiative of the Pew Research Center, a nonprofit ‘fact tank’ that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. Pew Internet explores the impact of the internet on children, families, communities, the work place, schools, health care and civic/political life. The Project is nonpartisan and takes no position on policy issues.”
They had two recent studies that RetailWire readers will likely find interesting, one on how consumers make product choices while shopping online and another on how people feel about online shopping in general.
I got into this whole thing because I was trying to find the printed version of a study I had heard on the radio which discussed how people actually use their cell phones. We talk about a lot of “bold new uses,” yet I was amazed how few people have never merely sent a simple text message. It seems that when conducting the type of survey IBM has done here, people tend to respond based on what sounds good rather than how they will actually act. I never did find the radio survey documented, but as I recall the conclusion was that there is a lot of texting going on between a concentrated number of users. The majority of people are still using their phone primarily as a voice device.
An interesting question for many of the people surveyed by IBM would be whether they have a computer. It may turn out that the cell phone is the only means of internet access for many people. That completely changes what you need from the phone. If you also have a computer at home and use it to do many of the things mentioned then you would probably only use the phone occasionally unless it was a truly mobile need, like payments.
Folks would use cell phones for more functions if the procedures were simple. Cell phones today are harder to use than the VCRs of yesterday. Millions of people never recorded anything using their VCR because the procedures weren’t self-explanatory. I bought a new cell phone last week after visiting 6 different stores. None of the folks in 6 different stores could properly demonstrate their phones. Every store I visited was owned and operated by a national cell carrier (Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint). I visited 6 different stores because the web sites communicated poorly, the folks working in the call centers didn’t know the answers to my questions, and I don’t give up easily. Most folks just don’t have that level of persistence.
This is a major shift that will take some years to happen. The youth of today love the technology but still need to have their own income on order to affect this change in a mass way.
The “elders” of the world–anyone over 30–are now quite comfortable with computers, but their eyesight will soon start to fade, meaning the phone screen is almost useless without reading glasses.