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Writer's pictureAaron Weiche

Showrooming & Mobile E-commerce On The Rise

Stand in an electronics aisle at your local Walmart, Target or Best Buy while shopping and you’ll likely see someone scanning barcodes with their eyes glued to their smartphone. It might even be you and you’re “showrooming”.

Mobile e-commerce is on the rise and the power for consumers to stand in front of a product in a retail store and then use their phone to price compare and then buy it from their device is growing.  A recent comScore study revealed that some 35% of consumers confessed to showrooming in Q2 of 2012.  That stat means they priced shopped using their phone, but doesn’t mean they executed a purchase online, that number is closer to just 6%.

How Easy Is Showrooming?

It’s crazy easy.  With the Amazon app on my iPhone I headed out to my local Walmart and quickly saw the ease and reward of this.  The 46″ LED TV I scanned the barcode of came up on Amazon at $50 cheaper than the price in Walmart (Store: $898.00, Amazon: $848.81) and the shipping was free.  The only way you’d pay more is to have that TV right then and there … but many online retailers are toying with same day shipping these days.


amazon app showrooming

Mobile Commerce Is Not All “On The Go”

So much of mobile strategy in recent years has been made out to be about the context of the mobile user.  Where we are and what we are trying to do or go next was the focus.  That’s changing too.  Mobile usage at home, on the couch and even in bed is now a big chunk of where our smartphones and tablets are being used.  AOL and BBDO released a study that 68% of smartphone use takes place in the home.

There is no doubt that m-commerce is on the rise and only just at the start of it’s growth.  If you’re a statistic hound, then you’ll want to check out this recent comScore report on which retailers are carving out space in the m-commerce market.  The next step for many retailers is making sure their mobile shopping experience is great and that is where my job and talents come into play. 🙂

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