Posts tagged Research
[Research] Half of U.S. Cellphone Owners Research In-Store Goods With Their Devices
Jan 30th
The rise of mobile commerce is going to give traditional retail stores a headache. Results from a survey done by the Pew Internet and American Life Project shows that 25% of cellphone owners used their phone to look up the price of a product before buying it at a store. More than half of cellphone owners used their phones to determine what product to buy while in a retail store.
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Pew’s research only touched on the notion of consumers researching products before buying them. The survey did not include a segment on mobile payments, where consumers actually paid for the retails goods in-store with their cellphones. That is an important distinction. Retail stores could stem the tide of users researching products on their phones and buying the product elsewhere if the industry were to combine the research process with the actual transaction.
About 38% of American cellphone owners called a friend for advice about a purchase while shopping. 25% looked up prices for a product found in a store while 24% looked up product reviews. The cumulative total was that 52% of U.S. adult cellphone owners used their cellphones while shopping over the holiday season and 33% use their cellphones specifically for online information of physical goods.
According to Pew, one in five of these “mobile price matchers” would eventually make a purchase online instead of at the retail store. That translates into 5% of all cellphone owners who made purchases online after stepping foot in a retail store. That may not seem like a big number but when it comes to big retail, each percentage point could mean millions if not near billions of dollars. The old retail adage of “just get them in the store” is starting to slip as easy access to information sits in every consumers’ pockets.
Of the mobile price matchers, 37% decided not to purchase the product t all, 35% purchased the product at the store, 19% purchased the product online and 8% purchased the product at another store.
The biggest takeaway from Pew’s findings is that mobile commerce starting to significantly affect the conversion rates of physical retail stores. How can retail stores stem the tide of consumers deciding to make a purchase elsewhere once they already have them in the store?
The strategy revolves around having a strong mobile Web presence. That does not necessarily mean an actual native app. If you are in a retail store researching with your phone and you Google the product, the retail store should be one of the first results. With the location abilities of smartphones, the search could even tell you what store or neighborhood you are actually in. The retailer could then be able to offer a deal or an incentive to buy and offer to complete the transaction through the device. The mobile Web app could hook into your mobile wallet and bill you directly or instruct the consumer to see the cashier where payment could be made by either near field communications (NFC) or by scanning a QR code. The idea is to control both the research and the transaction. Channel the consumer to your product.
Did you research your holiday spending on your phone? How have your shopping habits changed since you bought a smartphone? Let us know in the comments.
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5 Questions To Streamline Your Keyword Research
Jan 10th
It’s time for the first meeting with the customer. You may be a seasoned search marketer, but you’re still a little nervous. How do you achieve that perfect balance of getting the information you need while still exuding an aura of consummate professionalism, knowledge, and generally make yourself…
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What Would It Take to Turn Apple Into Research In Motion?
Dec 16th
On the heights, all the paths are paved with daggers – Robert Jordan
The Apple rumor cycle is gearing back up. It is always exciting when the mass of Web pundits get on their high horses and start making prognostications about who, when, what, how the new iDevice will be. With all the attention that new versions of the iPad and iPhone receive, it begs a question: what happens when/if Apple releases a complete flop? You know, something along the lines of a BlackBerry Storm-like disaster. The driving force of Steve Jobs is gone and, one way or another, that is going to affect Apple’s products. What happens to the Cult of Apple and its iDevice line if the next iteration is widely disgusted?
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Apple gets its fair share of criticism. The iPhone 4S was not the iPhone 5. It did not have NFC, LTE or a variety of other things that people expected the company to include in the new phone. Those improvements will make their way into the next iteration. That is how Apple does things. It holds back on certain innovations until they are more commonly available and stable and will not ruin the user experience. Apple also will have some new marketing tools for the next in the series – “iPhone 5S, now with NFC!”
This iterative product release strategy makes it all but certain that Apple will not come out with a dud in the next couple of years. The roadmap is pretty clear. The iPhone 4S may not have been what a lot of consumers or pundits thought they wanted, but it is still a good device with a little talking search engine baked inside. The user interface for iOS 5 is polished and leaves little wanting.
Now come the rumors for the iPad 3. What is it going to be? Is it going to be smaller? Will there be two new iPads next year, a big one and a small one? Will it have retina display and an A6 processor (it is probably pretty safe to say “yes” for these)? Apple has two things going for it with the release of the next iPad: money and time. Apple’s cash reserves could literally bail out the banks of a couple small-to-medium sized countries. Research and development will get all the money it needs to figure out what consumers want, run through a couple of prototypes and carpet bomb the market next year. Apple does not need to rush the next iPad. The iPhone 4S did not come out until near 15 months after the iPhone 4. The iPad 2 is still a great device that many have a hard time envisioning any better. Outside for some spec bumps, what could and iPad 3 really show us?
Yet, there is a well-known slope in the tech industry for device makers with poor product releases. Look at Nokia, Hewlett-Packard and Research In Motion. All three of those companies dug themselves holes that will take years to climb out of, if ever. RIM has had the biggest drop of all of these companies. Revenue is dropping (even though smartphone sales are technically increasing) and market share has been depleted as Android and iOS gobble up would-be BlackBerry users. The company released its quarterly earnings statement this week and things are looking bleak in Waterloo. RIM has been savaged by mismanagement, poor product decisions, failure to innovate quickly, delayed product releases and infamous service outages. It is a company in disarray.
BlackBerry is an interesting corollary for Apple. It is a product that once engendered cult-like feelings, just like Apple does now. For years though it has been releasing products that are “good enough.” BlackBerry OS 7 does not really look all that different from BlackBerry OS 5 or 6. We are in wait-and-see mode for BlackBerry 10 (the formerly named BBX, RIM cannot even get names right these days) but even the QNX-based operating system is being pushed back to the end of 2012 as opposed to Q1 2012, as previously thought. Pushing back product releases is almost as bad as releasing poor products in the eyes of the consumer. Unless you are Apple or an Android Nexus device, more time does not mean more anticipation. It means your company is going to be forgotten when the newest shiny toy that came out (on time) arrives.
Apple is never “late” on its product announcements. That is because Apple does not issue estimates of when a new device is coming. They let the tech press do that for them. Apple’s recent strategy has been to announce a product and then release it about a week later. Instant gratification, a brilliant strategy. In contrast, RIM announced the BlackBerry PlayBook in September 2010 and said “eventually.” It was put off several times before finally coming in April 2011, still a half-baked shell of what consumers were expecting.
Could Apple ever be in danger of turning into RIM? The fact that the company only releases two mobile products a year gives Apple little room for error. A couple of mediocre releases in a row that do not excite the public could whittle away at the Occult and Apple loses its luster. As we have seen, iOS users will not be swayed to a different product because it is different or shiny. The only way they are going to leave is if Apple shoots itself in the foot, multiple times in a row. That is what RIM did and not only did the product lose mindshare but the corporate infrastructure (which was never great in the first place) crumbled around it.
What it comes down to is the ability of Apple CEO Tim Cook to steer the company and its product releases in the next several years. Cook will need to oversee a significant innovative jump in the iDevice line eventually. Consumers are smart, they know when a company is milking their pockets. The iterative approach to iOS updates is only going to work for so long before Apple needs to make a major upgrade to the platform. When that time comes, Apple will need to make sure that its new products are the type that consumers have come to expect from the behemoth. Because, as we have seen so many times, the slope to decline is cobbled with good intentions gone bad, products that fail to live up to up to expectations and companies taking their cult status for granted.
Apple has enough money and brilliant engineers to avoid any type of decline for years. But, if Cupertino is not careful, the downward spiral is clear. Ask RIM if it ever thought it would be in the situation it is in now. Or Nokia. Success is not guaranteed, no matter how much people like you today.
Top image: Samsung Galaxy S II commercial
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Healthline and Wolfram Alpha Expand Health and Treatment Research Tools
Dec 16th
Healthline and Wolfram Alpha have both announced new features specifically related to comsumer health information. Healthline now offers a social search feature that taps into crowd sourced information on drug experiences while Wolfram Alpha taps …
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Microsoft Research: Searchers Really Do Favor Some Domains Over Others
Dec 13th
A new study from Microsoft Research confirms what most SEOs have known for years—that domain names are a crucial element for capturing clicks and conversions from search results. Unlike what’s been published in most search marketing forums, however, this research was not focused on SEO…
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View full post on Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Yahoo Site Explorer Alternative – Link Research Tools Introduces QBL
Dec 9th
The shutdown of Yahoo Site Explorer brought us QBL, the 10-second-car for Backlink Analysis It’s been a while since our last review of the Link Research Tools back in March and I want to thank you guys again for the massive feedback. Since then, a lot has happened in SEO, most recently the shutdown of the [...]
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Movember SEO Moustache Competition Raises $17000 For Cancer Research – Search Engine Land
Dec 2nd
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Movember SEO Moustache Competition Raises $17000 For Cancer Research
Search Engine Land SEO's were exchanging photos as well as quite a few digs at each other all month via Twitter using the #seostache hashtag. We've been positing mustache progress throughout Movember on our Facebook page. Duane, Mike and Matt sporting their final … |
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Shoppers Research Deals via Mobile and Online Ahead of 2011 Black Friday Sales
Nov 28th
Black Friday online shopping spend in the U.S. market jumped 26 percent this year over last, to $816 million, says comScore. Retailers fared better on Thanksgiving this year, as well, with $479 million spent online, up 18 percent over the holiday …
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