Social Mobile Commerce
Social media communications on smartphones has begun to influence U.S. consumer shopping habits in a big way.
Shopping habits at retail stores
Shopping with friends is a time-honored pastime for U.S. consumers. But these days, your friends don’t even need to be with you on the shopping trip. Consumers are accessing social media via their mobile phones, and getting advice about products before they buy. A 2011 study from ROI Research showed that 60% of consumers are at least somewhat likely to purchase a product based on information gleaned from Twitter or Facebook. A study from Knowledge Networks found that 27% of mobile users checked prices or compared products via social media during their buying process.
Chart: Reasons why U.S. consumers interact with social media via mobile phone during the shopping process
| Reason for the interaction | % of responders |
| Compare, check prices | 27% |
| Check reviews for brands, places, services | 24% |
| Tell others where you are | 22% |
| Get coupons/discounts from local businesses | 16% |
| Tell others what you bought | 10% |
| Post a review of what you bought | 5% |
| Tweet a review of what you bought | 2% |
Source: Knowledge Networks and MediaPost Communications, “The Faces of Social Media, Wave 2” study, June 14, 2011
Marketers have long understood that consumers trust recommendations from friends and family far more that advertising messages from brands. Social media is accelerating the importance of word of mouth from a trusted source. The Knowledge Networks study found that 37% of social media users trust product information shared by friends online, but only 10% trust messages from strangers.
The implications of this trend are clear: As sharing and comparing moves to real time, retailers must focus maniacally on the customer experience, ensure competitive value, and figure out ways to get in on the conversation going on around them in social media.
Location-based services
Mobile applications for sharing your location—the leading applications being FourSquare, Facebook Places and Gowalla—are also impacting buying behavior. Users of these so-called “check-in” services skew toward female full-time students, and represent less than 20% of smartphone users so far, according to comScore. But their buying behavior is dramatically influenced by the service. Check-in services users are 76% more likely to access shopping guides, and 82% more likely to access online retail than smartphone users as a whole. A study from JiWire showed that smartphone users are looking for applications well beyond check in—including store locations, coupons, reviews, and product availability.
Chart: Beyond check-in: Services of interest to mobile users
| Services of Interest | % of responders |
| Store locations | 57% |
| Points of Interest | 51% |
| Checking in | 49% |
| Sales, coupons | 27% |
| Reviews | 35% |
| Connect with others | 33% |
| Product inventory | 21% |
Source: JiWire, “Mobile Audience Insights Report,” 2011
Enabling e-commerce through the smartphone
As the mobile device becomes more and more like a very small personal computer, inevitably it will be increasingly used for online shopping. Social media are a big part of this environment, influencing how consumers buy, and encouraging merchants to include social tools when optimizing their e-commerce environments for smartphones and tablets.
New tools for social mobile commerce
A variety of new tools have emerged to support this trend toward social mobile commerce, among them:
- Logging in to e-commerce sites via social media like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.
- Q&A services like ChaCha and Localmind, where consumers can get questions answered quickly through crowd-sourcing or access to expert.
- Style advice like Go Try It On, Fashism, and TriMirror, where shoppers can upload snapshots or videos from the store dressing room, and get feedback from their friends.
- Shopping advice like Scandit and MyShopanion, where users scan a product barcode, share it with friends, and discuss its merits on site.
- Thanks to the introduction of “near-field communications” (NFC) technology, a type of radio frequency that communicates across a 3-centimeter distance, mobile payment beginning to take off in the U.S. About 30% of U.S. smartphones contain the NFC chip, growing to an estimated 80% by 2015. Led by the Google Wallet, NFC allows consumers to tap their phones on a reader at retail, and make a payment instantly.
- At the 2012 National Retail Federation (NRF) annual convention in New York in January, the show floor was buzzing with new solutions to help retailers get in on the social mobile phenomenon. In one example, Microstrategy introduced tools that allows retailers to tie their loyalty programs to customers’ Facebook accounts. The apparel retailer Guess just launched a mobile app for its 4 million loyalty card members, where they can view their points, scan barcodes and share their likes with friends.