Mobile Matters this Holiday Season
With the holiday season nearing, marketers should look to optimizing their mobile shopping capabilities and honing social media tactics. According to new data sourced from the Ipsos Canadian Inter@ctive Trends Report, a study of the incidence, activities and attitudes surrounding online purchases in Canada, Canadian online purchasers are increasingly using their smartphones (25%) and tablet computers (24%) - an increase of 5 percentage points each from last year - to buy products and services online.
Overall, the study found that 84% of Canadian Internet users have made a purchase online in the past year, and while the vast majority (90%) have done so using a desktop or laptop computer, a growing number are using their smartphones and tablet computers which suggests we are becoming more accepting of using mobile devices to make online purchases and less concerned about security issues. For retailers, that means ensuring the user experience is optimized across multiple screens, especially if they wish to attract the younger generations like Millennials, where four in ten indicate to having used their smartphone to complete a purchase.
As with last year, Amazon (31%) continues to be the top choice for recent online purchases (up 7 percentage points from 2014). This is distantly followed by eBay (9%, stable), Walmart (4%, up 1 percentage point) and Chapters and Indigo (4%, stable).
Results from the study also reveal that 14% of all online Canadians made an online purchase through a sponsored link or advertisement posted on a social media site. This jumps to one in five (21%) among those between the ages of 18-34 years. One in ten (11%) made an online purchase after seeing a related social media post, which increases to 22% among those between the ages of 18-34 years.
Thus, it cannot be denied that social media will also play an important role in driving eCommerce and should be integrated into the marketing mix this holiday season.
For more interesting insights into holiday shopping trends to watch for, please check out this study we conducted for Google.
