Mobile’s effect on impulse purchases
Picture this. A shopper enters your store, browses, sees a product they love on the shelf, picks it up and trundles off to pay for it at the checkout.
A classic impulse purchase.
However, that scenario could be forever changed thanks to the proliferation of mobile devices. Shoppers who are still coping with financial concerns are now tempering their impulses by comparing prices via their smartphone.
Nowadays consumers enter a store, see a product they like, whip out their smartphones and start comparing prices. Many leave the store empty handed having found a better deal elsewhere.
According to Nick Holland, senior analyst at the Yankee Group, smartphone-empowered consumers are growing in numbers and, as a consequence, the number of impulse purchases being made is decreasing.
Indeed, he believes those that compare prices via mobile, before succumbing to an emotional buy, show “intelligence and cunning when confronted by aggressive sales staff”.
“Impulse purchases are the opposite,” says Holland “showing personal weakness – they are a dirty little secret that probably isn’t to be shared with others.”
StorefrontBacktalk editor, Even Schuman, disagrees. He believes shoppers, even those armed with smartphones, won’t be able to control their natural urges.
“Impulse purchases are indeed emotional, and rationality does not come nearly as naturally,” he writes.
“For every in-aisle price- and feature-comparison that an Android or iPhone enables, there will be 20 purchases in the heat of the moment. And those impulse purchases will be enabled by mobile.”