• Mobile shoppers break out as 52% female and 48% male. By age group, the mobile shopping population looks like this:

   
  • 18-29 24%
  • 30-44 30%
  • 45-60 27%
  • 60+ 19%
• Mobile shoppers are also a well-educated population with 32% having a college degree and 27% have a graduate degree.
• About 50% of online shoppers are doing ½ of their online shopping with online-only retailers.
• 30% of these consumers say they shop as much on mobile as they do on a traditional computer.

• To make their experience easier, these consumers frequently turn to mobile apps. These consumers tell researchers they like to use mobile apps but about 55% express frustration with these apps. At least 20% of the time they are encountering difficulties.

   

  Researchers have found that mobile apps should deliver the following:

   
  • Mimic what consumers encounter online
  • Ease of use
  • Speed
  • Personalized offers
  • Customer care on demand
• Mobile shoppers can be fickle and 71% will abandon the cart when they encounter difficulties.
• 95% of mobile shoppers who encounter trouble will complain to other people.
• AudienceSCAN research shows over 20% of iOS App users have incomes exceeding $100,000. These consumers over-index in their intent to pay for childcare expenses, tuition and lessons for a hobby or sports. This detail suggests many app users are in their busy child-rearing years and need tools like apps to help them shop efficiently.

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• iPhone users consistently view fewer pages, spend less time on site, and have a higher bounce rate

• Today's mobile users demand exceptional web experiences and highly satisfying, convenient, on-the-go mobile site speeds regardless of their mode of access. The independent survey of more than 4,000 global users worldwide was conducted to understand consumers' mobile web and application expectations and experiences.

• Mobile tablet owners might love their devices, but online retailers are likely to love them even more. A new study by Adobe Digital Marketing Insights reveals that individual tablet visitors spend more money on online purchases than do smartphone or traditional desktop- and laptop-computer shoppers.
• When making purchases, the large tablet screens are easier to use than smartphone screens, and he also noted that the high price point of most tablets means that owners may be more affluent than other visitors. In fact, tablet owners generally skew toward 18- to 34-year-old males. “Outside research indicates that men are often earlier adopters of technology,” Bankhead said.

• Despite the increasing sophistication of retailers consumers remain reluctant to purchase with their smartphones
• People go into different shops along a high street and record offers on products they like, storing them up for comparison later at home.
• Less than a quarter of respondents to our Digital Selves study said they would be comfortable using their phones to buy goods, although this percentage may rise considerably in the next decade.
• Although online shopping is growing exponentially, precisely because it is so convenient, purchasing via smartphones involves a different psychology. Consumers still think of the fixed line PC as secure, the more “untethered” the device, the more resistant they are to using it for sensitive activities. Only 11% of PC users hesitated to part with money, fill in their personal details and purchase goods online whereas the figure for mobile phone users was 37%.
• making errors while going through the purchasing steps, the online payment mechanism

  • These two issues speak to not pushing starting new subscriptions on a phone. The idea that a mobile signal may drop in the middle of the process is yet another barrior to the main goal of getting an update of the news while having time to kill.
• Where fixed line internet connections are involved , the level of concern about security is fairly constant across all age groups.
• as a general rule, privacy and security concerns rise with age. However, there is one glaring exception: 18 to 24 year-olds are more preoccupied with security across wireless and mobiles than 25 to 44 year-olds. We think this is because they are more aware of the risks but our next major research project, Digital Futures, will provide definitive answers.

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• May 30, 2012
• 80% never leave home without their phones in hand. They do everything on it, including shopping. Whatever your business is, an ever growing chunk of your target customers are using their mobile devices instead of computers to go online.
• By 2013, more people will use mobile phones than PCs to get online
• Most of the cellphones are already smartphones. While Android is the most common platform, and wealthier users prefer iPhones, your website should work equally well on all platforms.
• 80% of customers abandon a mobile site if they have a bad user experience.
• Smartphones and tablets aren’t small desktop computers – they’re new devices being used in entirely new ways.
• People will want the mobile websites to load as fast as desktop sites (in 3 seconds or less) – even though the bulk of mobile users are on a 3G network that’s slower than broadband internet. So you need to cut the excess fat.
• A lot of people use smartphones while waiting (in line to get a dose of Starbucks, supermarket checkout line etc). They don’t want to wait while waiting.
• men are more likely than women to make purchases with their smartphone, and they are more likely to buy services.
• tablet users spend over 50% more per purchase at online retailers when compared with smartphone visitors, and 20% more when compared with traditional laptop and desktop visitors.

• Tablet visitors were also nearly three times more likely to buy products and services online than smartphone visitors and were nearly as likely to purchase as desktop/laptop visitors.

   

  The findings are based on roughly 16.2 billion online transactions from 150 top U.S. retailers in 2011.
• Austin Bankhead, director of Adobe Digital Marketing Insights, suggests that when making purchases, the large tablet screens are easier to use than smartphone screens, and he also noted that the high price point of most tablets means that owners may be more affluent than other visitors.

• Tablet owners are the most active local searchers with 64 percent using their devices at least weekly for local searches and 86 percent making a purchase from their most recent tablet-based local search, according to a report from Localeze and 15miles.

   

  The reason might be that people are more likely to keep tablets at a fixed location (home) due to bigger size compared to smartphones.

  • Does this speak to hyper-local news at all?

• Receiving the message via smartphone doesn’t mean that they’re going to complete the purchase using it. 43% of actually did it later via computer. Another 35% have done so in person, slightly more than the 34% who have done so via smartphone browser.

   

  People might prefer completing purchases on a computer due to habits and security concerns. Consumers still think of PCs/laptops as secure devices. Only 11% of PC users hesitated to part with money, fill in their personal details and purchase goods online whereas the figure for mobile phone users was 37%.

  • This is huge and speaks directly to not pushing purchasing a subscription or registration on a phone.
• 

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• September 19, 2012
• Across both smartphones and desktop computers, males and females represented nearly equal proportions of retail category visitors. However, females accounted for a higher share of time spent on retail destinations at 53.4 percent of minutes on desktop computers and an even greater share of retail minutes on smartphones at 56.1 percent.
• Smartphone shoppers were also more likely to be younger than their desktop counterparts with 70.7 percent of smartphone retail visitors under the age of 45 compared to 61.1 percent of desktop users. Engagement among these audiences showed even greater disparity with visitors under the age of 45 accounting for nearly 3 in every 4 minutes spent on retail content via smartphones, compared to 61.6 percent of retail minutes on desktop computers.
• Smartphone retail audiences were more likely to reside in higher income households compared to desktop computer users, likely as a result of smartphone ownership skewing towards higher income segments compared to an average consumer. Among smartphone audiences accessing retail destinations, nearly 1 in every 3 had a household income of $100k or greater, with this income segment driving a comparable 31.2 percent of minutes spent on retail sites and apps.

  • This is an important statistic. Does that mean 1 in 3 news readers who access the news via a smart phone has a household income of $100K or more? - I believe it does!
• 

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• November 29, 2012

• For instance, Amazon’s homepage on both its mobile site and app is currently merchandised for Cyber Monday week sales.

   

  However, instead of cluttering the page with offers, Amazon directs users to a curated page with holiday deals, some of which are time-specific.

  • I highlighted these two passages because they speak to currated, timely content rather than usinga shotgun approach to displaying content.
• Consumers coming to Amazon are already on a mission, whether it is for comparison shopping or convenience. Therefore, users probably are not as responsive to some of the harder deals that online retailers traditionally push during the holidays.

  • I highlighted this to remind me about users being on a mission. Although this passage is talking about shopping - the argument can be made that news consumers are on a mission to be informed. On a mobile phone, having to sign up or find an account presents a bigger barrior to fullfilling that mission than it does on a computer. Rule: Don't get in the way of the experience.
• “If you’re a regular Amazon customer, your information is stored and follows you between the Web site and mobile app,” she said. “Having that information easily accessible is especially important on smaller screens.”

  • This speaks to the mobile device (phone especially) is an extention from the base device (the desktop). More input intensive interactions/requirements should be moved to the hub allowing the satalite device to execute.

• Amazon.com accounts are linked across different devices, meaning that Amazon saves a user’s shopping behavior across desktop, mobile and tablet screens.

   

  For example, users who add an item to their shopping cart on Amazon’s Web site will also see the item added to their shopping carts on Amazon’s mobile site and apps.

   

  By tracking a user’s experience across multiple screens, Amazon is able to create a more personalized and convenient shopping experience for users.

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• January 18, 2013
• Mobile users expect high quality experiences and accessibility from their mobile devices.
• Researches have shown that the user has a grace period of 30-60 seconds when first using the mobile application, which will result in either adopting the application or moving to a different available application. The app should be easy to navigate and as close to the web interface as possible.
• Essentially, mobile users are less tolerant and much more demanding than desktop users.

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• November 29, 2012
• A new report on consumer online and mobile behavior finds that smartphones are most popular with singles while married folks favor tablets
• “Marketers can now also map consumer intent, which is driven by a combination of device type, time of day and day of week; for example, a home buyer's behavior is different on a smartphone during the weekday when they are researching than on the weekends when they are ‘in market.’
• baby boomers are often more tech-savvy than their slightly younger counterparts because they have children who are pushing them to use new tools and devices.

  • That's interesting - how kids can sell technology up the age ladder to their parents.
• it is important that advertisers consider how to match content and experiences with the time of day and specific device in order to best engage users.
• Millennials do not separate work and play as much as their older counterparts, with 53 percent of 18 to 34 year olds more likely to purchase something online during the day than at night. In comparison, only 42 percent of those 55 years and older are more likely to purchase during the workday.
• 52 percent of respondents 18 to 34 years old are more likely to browse social networks during the workday compared with 41 percent of respondents 35 to 44 years old, 30 percent of 45 to 54 year olds and 30 percent of those 55 and older.

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• October 22, 2012   

   

  Mobile Email Newsletters
• For each of the 191 newsletters that people read on their phones, we asked whether they would have sometimes opened or read that newsletter on their desktop or laptop computers. Participants said yes in 93% of cases, so only    7% of newsletters would have been read only on a phone    .
• Thus, the predominant usage is    cross-platform subscriptions    , where people sometimes consume a newsletter on the computer and sometimes on mobile.
• In fact, people sometimes do both with a single edition of a newsletter: one-third of the time, users told us that their reason for also reading a newsletter on the computer was to    reread the content or complete an action on the bigger screen

  • This is acutally a big deal. Many mobile users start mobile but finish desktop.
• In other words, you might record sales or other conversions as coming from desktop users in cases where the behaviors were actually prompted by mobile reading of the same newsletter.
• Given this dual-platform reading, we don't recommend offering subscribers the choice between desktop and mobile versions of an email newsletter.
• So, instead of having two newsletters, it's better to use    responsive design    and other techniques to adapt a single newsletter to various platforms. This is in contrast to websites; because they're interactive, you can let users switch between mobile and full sites as their needs dictate. In email, everything has already left your control once the message is sent.
• A responsive newsletter implementation should also change the link destinations depending on the user's current platform. If a user is reading the email on a phone, links should point to mobile-friendly pages. It's deadly to dump people into the full site when they come from a (presumably) mobile-optimized newsletter reading experience. Conversely, if a user is reading the message on a computer, links should point to the full site so that users will see desktop-optimized pages.

  • Need to remember this for NGUX - specifically, the spot where users go from LAT to Deals Near Me.
• This is particularly true because people sometimes have    time to kill    while using their phones. One user said:    "I tend to look at a lot more marketing material on my phone. It's because at home I wouldn't sit and give them the time. But if I'm on the move and have the spare time, I do it. If I was at work or home, I just delete it if it's unsolicited." 

  • This points to the number of people reading the news on mobile device - they have time to kill.

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• The bounce rate, as explained by Emily Mace in 2011, basically tells you how many people landed on the site and left from the same page they landed on
• Analytics shows us bounce rates for individual pages, which means we can see which pages encourage further interaction and which ones get mainly single views.
• Bounce rates and exit rates are not the same thing. The bounce rate shows the number of visits to a site that include only one page. The exit rate records people leaving the site from a specific page. Looking at your website statistics you will see a site-wide bounce rate as well as bounce rates for individual pages.

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• Mobile users tend to spend less time on site than desktop visitors do—in some cases, as much as 40 percent less time.

• Jan 25, 2013
• The purpose of this case study is to observe the variances between mobile and desktop search queries.
• I will mainly focus on three areas: average visits, visit duration, and bounce rates I will also look at how users were influenced in their behaviour when using mobile or desktop devices. In future when I mention mobile devices it will encompass both mobile and tablet devices.
• These stats were recorded over a month and still favour the desktop as still being the most popular computer device used.
• According to Startapp desktop and mobile searches peak at various times throughout the day, 2pm being the peak time for desktops then mobile searches increase all the way through to night time.
• This suggests that desktops are used more in the workplace and when everyone leaves work mobile devices are the preferred choice for online users.
• Also ICD predict by the end of 2015 internet users will access the internet through mobile devices more than desktops.
• According to our  average visit duration stats users spent on average 22% less time on the website when using a mobile as compared to desktops.
• In relation to bounce rates our studies show that desktop users had 8% less than mobile users, suggesting that desktop users were more likely to stay on your webpage longer in comparison to mobile users.

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• While desktop Web sites often contain a wide range of content, mobile sites usually include only the most crucial functions and features—particularly those that leverage time and location
• while global navigation is common on mobile sites, contextual navigation is not
• The main reason for the reduction of global and contextual navigation on mobile sites is the limited screen real estate on mobile devices. However, a lack of global and contextual navigation may cause users to find themselves in the middle of nowhere, not knowing where they are. Therefore, it’s essential to reduce hierarchy when organizing the content on mobile sites, so users don’t have to dig too deeply to get things done. They should be able to achieve what they want to accomplish before becoming lost
• mobile sites usually include only the most crucial and time- and location-specific functions and features.
• vertical navigation replaces horizontal navigation on more than 90% of the mobile sites we analyzed
• on mobile sites, there are few or no hypertexts on pages
• Mobile sites avoid using promotional and marketing graphics and use minimal graphics for navigation.
• contextual navigation is rare on mobile sites.
• Breadcrumbs are rare on mobiles sites and really aren’t necessary, because of the relatively flat structure of mobile sites.
• Process funnels on desktop Web sites frequently use a progress indicator at the top of each page to guide users through the process. Such progress indicators do not appear on mobile sites.
• Mobile sites offer better integration with phone functions
• Mobile sites can take advantage of technology that automatically detects where users are to present local search results.

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