More Consumers Using Smartphones to Comparison-Shop This Holiday Season

Consumers using cellphones to shop for deals will account for $127 billion of the $447 billion in U.S. holiday spending that the National Retail Federation projects this year, said a report by IDC Retail Insights. IDC surveyed more than 1,000 consumers over age 19 in September to find out how growing familiarity with mobile and social media commerce will play out this shopping season.

Mobile and social media commerce are giving consumers leverage by enabling them to price-shop other retailers as they're making buying decisions in stores, IDC said. Results suggest that the “early maturity adult audience” is important in the trend, it said. Adults 25-44 years made up nearly two-thirds of the mobile shopping group and those 45-54 were the most inclined to use information gathered by phone to ask for a price matching one they've found shopping by cellphone, IDC said.

Retailers’ mobile-commerce aptitude influences consumer perception about brands, IDC said, and an easy-to-navigate website is likely to influence where consumers across age groups shop this holiday season, it said. More than one-third of smartphone-carrying consumers, 24 percent of all U.S. consumers, plan to use their mobile devices when shopping this holiday season by searching for price and product information, checking merchandise availability, comparing prices at nearby stores, browsing product reviews or buying goods, IDC said.

The new behaviors “will exert pressures that weaken the store’s immediate influence on purchase decisions at the shelf,” IDC said. Although social media don’t widely influence buying decisions in general, friends influence one another’s behavior, IDC said, and “sites that have earned consumer trust will influence this behavior as well.”