Shopgate, Inc., the leading SaaS shopping app platform, today released findings from its 2016 Mobile Shopping Benchmark Report, which reveals that many omnichannel retailers adopted mobile technologies in 2016, but many others have yet to adopt advanced techniques such as push notifications for their mobile applications.
According to the benchmark from Shopgate, Mobile Shopping and WBR Digital, retailers struggle to convert those consumers who are strictly using their mobile devices to browse ecommerce stores into customers. In fact, although 80% of retailers surveyed claimed their total online traffic comes through mobile devices, 53% indicated that less than 20% of their online sales are made from mobile devices.
The benchmark indicates omnichannel retailers have several areas of opportunity in 2017 to increase customer loyalty and build mobile strategies that will enable conversion success in 2017. Growth areas include personalizing the mobile experience using customer data, improving customer relationships with push notifications and enabling targeted marketing for mobile shoppers.
Additional key findings from the benchmark include:
- When considering which benefits motivate companies to adopt mobile apps, 62% of retailers highlighted an increase in conversion rates. This metric has a slight lead over the 56% of those who want to improve customer engagement and the 52% who want to increase customer retention.
- In 2016, retailers indicated they utilized tools that contribute to building the mobile customer relationship via mobile apps. These include push notifications (32%), loyalty programs (30%), product availability (27%) and personalized offers (23%).
Moving into 2017, retailers are looking to:
- Raise the ante on more advanced mobile tools. Most notably, in 2017 13% more companies plan to utilize push notifications; 12% more plan to utilize loyalty programs; 12% more plan to utilize product availability; and 14% more plan to utilize personalized offers.
- Increase marketing budgets on mobile initiatives. 40% of retailers surveyed in the benchmark reported they plan to spend anywhere from 20% – 80% of their marketing budgets on mobile initiatives.
“In order to succeed in integrating mobile marketing and retail into a broader strategy, retailers must understand the unique aspects of mobile channels, how they are used by customers and the specific marketing strategies effective in these areas,” said Marc Biel, CEO, Shopgate. “In many cases, the strategic use of segmentation, targeted marketing and customer data to launch value-added notifications and drive customers to mobile apps improves customer relationships and customer perceptions of retailers’ brands.”
Shopgate will be at NRF Retail’s BIG Show in January 2017, discussing the findings of this benchmark as well as the best practices retailers can adopt into their mobile strategy moving into 2017. To set up a time to speak with Shopgate please email mariana@ketnergroup.com.
Methodology:
This report is based on the results of an on-site survey delivered to leading industry professionals attending the Mobile Shopping Summit in October 2016. A total of 196 professionals were surveyed for this report, of which a total of 69% of respondents claim to represent retailers, including specialty retailers (26%); general ecommerce (12%); apparel (8%); software and analytics (7%); hardware, electronics, and appliances; department stores (5%); and more. As well, 68% of companies polled identify themselves as multi-channel companies and 16% of companies identify as being online only.
Source: Shopgate Press Release
