Sell By Cell

Tweet

Are you letting your customers make purchases with their cell phone, yet? If not, it's time to get with the program. Let me put it this way, if you are in retail then not doing business via mobile device is akin to not doing online sales back in 1997. Why wait?

Pricegrabber.com just put out a new survey of mobile use habits of U.S. consumers.

Naturallly, I have some "startling statistics" to share from the study.

1. 58% of online shoppers have a web-enabled phone.
2. One in ten of them have made at least one purchase via mobile device.
3. 16% use their mobile device to comparison shop.
4. 14% are "window shopping".
5. 16% are researching product information.
6. 8% are looking for online coupons and other discounts.
7. There are now more than 40 million people accessing the mobile Internet among U.S. consumers.

If you are thinking that the economy will slow down mobile web adoption, think again. Less than twenty percent surveyed say that they will likely cut back their mobile services to save money.

In fact, the only thing slowing down the mobile web is the mobile web itself. Consumers complain that the biggest reason they don't shop via mobile device is it takes too long.

This sounds so 1997 to me.

I'm guessing 2010 will sound very 1998.

Renee Oricchio

Renee Oricchio is a technology writer and former supervising news producer for CNN Financial News. She has been covering the computer industry since 1987.