Shoppers may be flocking to the convenience of mobile in droves, but if given the choice, they would rather shop in-store than on the Internet, according to Kentico's ongoing Digital Experience Research.
"Our survey suggests that while shoppers like the convenience of shopping online via mobile devices, they still want as much of an in-store experience as possible," said Kentico CEO and Founder Petr Palas. "While it may be impossible for businesses to provide mobile shoppers with a 100 percent in-store experience, they need to make mobile shoppers 'feel' as if they're truly in their stores, touching their products, talking to sales reps and being catered to. Otherwise, they will lose business to those sites that do."
To hammer home the importance of a cross-channel shopping experience, note the following takeaways from Kentico's study:
- 85 percent of smartphone owners use their mobile devices to comparison shop
- Of those, 45 percent will do so from the store's actual location
- 74 percent of smartphone, tablet and laptop owners say buying on a mobile device often comes down to the mobile site's look and feel
- 44 percent of mobile users won't return to sites not optimized for mobile
"This goes beyond what businesses actually do and sell online," continued Palas. "If their sites aren't mobile friendly, people who are out and about will forge new brand relationships with competitors, and they'll take these relationships back home with them to their computers. When it comes to making and breaking customer relationships, it's all happening on mobile devices."
