Beating the Christmas rush
Each year the Christmas rush appears to become ever more hectic and fast paced as mums and dads across the country fight it out with other customers for the newest toys and games to buy for their children. To find a parking spot at Chadstone 
Shopping Centre during the holiday season is like trying to find a fart in a sandstorm. As queues grow longer at stores and shopping complexes, an astute and ever increasing amount of people are using their Smart Phones for their holiday shopping.
According to Google Australia, a quarter of all Google searches related to Christmas shopping in 2011 came from the use of mobile phones and handheld devices. This equates to a 220 per cent rise in retail queries via mobiles since 2010 making evident the increasing importance of businesses being able to cater for shoppers using these new mediums.
The upward trend towards mobile purchases and enquiries does not appear to be slowing down, Google announced that by the closing of 2011, over 50% of Australian adults will own a Smart phone. Despite this figure more than 80% of our retailers are yet to produce mobile-friendly websites.
With 25% of Christmas shopping related queries coming in from mobiles the missed opportunity for these businesses is quite significant. With the development of mobile friendly websites retailers’ sales could be significantly improved.
It is not only on mobile phones that there is a rise in consumer searches and purchases, the use of tablets such as the iPad are also becoming ever more popular for shopping. Google’s Sameer Samat described using the tablet for shopping as “..the ultimate leanback experience” whilst PayPal dubs shopping with tablets as ‘couch commerce’. PayPal believes that tablet commerce will record its highest income this year.
With online shopping and the use of Smart phones set to smash records this Christmas, there is certainly plenty of money to be made for retailers and businesses that are willing to embrace these new technologies and advertising mediums. As more and more turn to their mobiles for their Christmas shopping, business savvy retailers are busy manufacturing Smart phone friendly sites to grab their slice of online shopping income.
To find out how your business could profit from Smart phone friendly websites why not give Conduct call?