Business Insider: Mobile location brings consumers from online to offline, boosting traditional shopping

According to the latest survey released by Nielsen, smartphones account for 60% of the US mobile phone market, and 92% of data traffic comes from iOS and Android phones. Such a huge mobile market has changed the blueprint of online and offline sales. More and more retail websites have found that mobile strategies have become the key to survival. At the same time, through the positioning function of mobile phones, users' shopping behavior can be brought from online browsing to offline transactions.

At today's Business Insider Ignition Mobile conference, online discount coupon site RetailMeNot and One Kings Lane.com, a flash sale site specializing in furniture and home furnishings, both saw rapid growth in revenue from mobile devices. RetailMeNot, which started out as a website, admitted that it had to launch its own app to consolidate its market share.

RetailMeNot found that some users would first go online with mobile devices such as mobile phones, and then complete the transaction on a computer or in a physical store. They also found that such a purchase pattern can be guided in reality. Therefore, since last fall, they have used the location function of mobile phones and geofencing. When users walk to a specific store or move around, the phone will receive automatic notifications and warnings, thereby guiding users to shop.

The online discount broker also observed through mobile phone users that on a single weekend last year on Black Friday, all participating geo-fenced stores had customers coming to the store with discount coupons. Therefore, when customers go shopping in shopping malls, it implies that they have a desire to shop. Therefore, when the website pushes discount information to users, it is easy to implement online information into actual offline transactions.

The privacy of mobile users' location has always been a hot topic of controversy. According to a Nielsen survey, as long as a little incentive is provided, it is easy for customers to let down their guard and agree to extract relevant information from the background. John Faith, senior vice president of RetailMeNot, confirmed this statement, "Users who were originally reluctant to disclose their location will agree immediately in most cases as long as we tell them that they can get these benefits as long as they agree."

For online retailers, mobile is just a broad term. They must fully utilize the convenience of smartphones and the different features of tablet computers’ large screens, and break them down one by one, in order to increase user engagement.

The limited-edition feature of One Kings Lane.com just fits the habit of mobile phone users to surf the Internet anytime and anywhere, and this theory was confirmed during the Christmas shopping season at the end of last year. CTO Jean Sini revealed that 28% of the revenue in the fourth quarter came from mobile terminals. Although most users browse on mobile phones, the actual consumption behavior is mostly on tablets.

John Sydney believes that the touch screen of tablet computers is the key reason. "Photos on shopping websites are the main driving force for people to buy, especially for leather sofas that cost up to $7,000. Users can touch and zoom in to view photos of product details, which increases participation. We also see that the purchase volume of mobile users has doubled compared to the past," he said.