Whether you battled the crowds last week or scored great online deals this week, many more of you used your mobile phone this year. According to the National Retail Federation, 139M shoppers spent $59 billion on Thanksgiving weekend alone, with nearly 40.7% online—a 7.6% jump over last year.
What part did mobile play in this retail bacchanalia? Here’s some impressive numbers for you to process:
Mobile accounted for 16.3% of online sales (IBM Benchmark).
Mobile phones accounted for 58.6% of the traffic (IBM).
iPad drove 88.3% of the tablet traffic (IBM).
Mobile accounted for 25% of black Friday and 22% of Cyber Monday sales (Adobe).
eBay/PayPal experienced 511% increase in Thanksgiving Day mobile payment activity since 2010.
The impact of smartphones, especially when they’re attached to youth, powered these results:
30M Smartphones have been injected into the US since 11/2011 (comScore).
The iPhone 5 generated more mobile sales in three days than the iPhone 4S did a month, driving holiday sales (comScore).
38% of Students said that they’d do mobile shopping on Thanksgiving Day (Digitas).
32% of Students are likely to decline a Thanksgiving meal invitation if they know they would not be able to use their mobile devices while there. (Digitas)
So did you use your mobile phone when shopping this past weekend?
May is usually a transition month for most midwesterners — storing the cold weather gear and bringing out the hot weather supplies. We BBQ, we burn our pasty white skin, and we look forward to a little slower summer pace.
Mobile doesn’t take a similar seasonal shift. It’s been a race to curate an every expanding and diversifying mobile content pool. Here are 7 of the 15 items that I sent in May:
May is usually a transition month for most midwesterners — storing the cold weather gear and bringing out the hot weather supplies. We BBQ, we burn our pasty white skin, and we look forward to a little slower summer pace.
Mobile doesn’t take a similar seasonal shift. It’s been a race to curate an every expanding and diversifying mobile content pool. Here are 7 of the 15 items that I sent in May:
Over the last few years, I’ve taken a close interest in mobile, and I’d like to share bits of it with you. The mobile world industry is evolving and growing faster globally than the Internet did roughly 15 years ago. It’s hard to keep current, especially in the mobile marketing space.
That’s why I created the 3FER, a SMS newsletter of three stories text to you weekly–always less than 300 words so that you can scan it easily and continue with your day. Topics will cover all of the facets of mobile marketing and commerce from many sources I track daily. Expect it to be loaded with case examples, opinions and techniques that will help give your efforts an edge.
Here are six items you missed from last month:
#1: 20% of American Adults Don’t Use the Internet -Pew Research
While the headline is a great zinger, those who make up the internet-adverse are not. Senior citizens, high school dropouts and households earning under $30K annually largely take a pass on the info superhighway—mostly because they don’t think it’s pertinent.
The interesting hook to this Pew report is that mobile is reducing the digital divide. These same groups who are computer adverse are often more mobile savvy—using their phone to gain Internet access. While less than 57% of American have a laptop, more than 88% have a mobile phone. In fact, African American and Latinos as likely own a mobile phone, but end up doing more with it.
Before you think “Hold on, I thought the FEC banned Text2Give campaigns like the Red Cross uses,” pause a moment. The tech-savvy folks at Obama for America now can raise money via SMS. Prior donors who’ve saved their credit card and mobile information received the following text:
“Support Pres Obama in less than a minute using our new secure system: just reply with the amount you want to give and we’ll charge your saved credit card.”
While a simple idea, the campaign is showing off its data integration muscle to make it all happen.
This technique can be used without all of the tech wizardry. For example, your local pizzeria probably has both your mobile and credit card info in their system from prior orders. Imagine them texting you an offer you can’t refuse via SMS, you reply yes, and 30 minutes later it’s delivered to your front door.
While linking mobile to TV is no longer cutting edge, its impact is exploding. Chief Marketer cites a recent study that 79% of fans used their mobile device during the NCAA tournament—91% of 18-24 year old viewers did the same. A little less than half check scores and 20% viewed highlight videos.
If you’re time crunched, check out the related infographic at Mobile Marketing Watch: http://bit.ly/IcjGIf
#4: PayPal flexes it’s POS muscle.
While Square has the early lead in the SMB space, it can’t match the reach and depth of PayPal’s parent company, eBay. Their smartphone-based POS system (point of sale), PayPal Here, signed up over 200K in its two weeks, 2,000 Home Depot stores in Q1 2012 and, unlike its competitors, has inroads overseas.
I’ve waited two decades to use that tagline I crafted in college. That said Google and others have clobbered map publishing business in the last few years. Instead of fighting this trend, Rand McNally is embracing it by incorporating QR codes in their atlases while releasing a mobile app.
Is mobile audio and video part of your mobile market mix? It should be. Check out these great global usage stats in a report by mobile equipment provider, Sandvine: http://bit.ly/JoapxL