African Americans, Hispanics Earliest Adopters of Mobile Shopping

U.S. smartphone penetration is nearing 50 percent, so it's no surprise that the adoption of mobile shopping tools has been rapid. But while this penetration skews lower among African Americans and Hispanics than Caucasians, both are adopting mobile shopping technologies at a faster rate than Caucasians, according to The Checkout, an ongoing shopper behavior study conducted by The Integer Group and M/A/R/C Research.

Eighteen percent of African American shoppers and 16 percent of Hispanic shoppers use their mobile device to make purchases, compared to 10 percent of Caucasians, the study found.

One in five African American shoppers (21 percent versus 13 percent of Caucasian shoppers) use their phone to read product reviews and maintain shopping lists and one in five Hispanic shoppers (20 percent) use their mobile device to compare prices on products.

"Basic mobile communication through SMS and mobile websites should be the points of entry,” said Martin Ferro, senior account planner for Velocidad, a Hispanic promotional, retail and shopper marketing capability of The Integer Group. “Mobile marketing to multicultural shoppers is a huge opportunity."

Additional findings on mobile shopping from The Checkout:

• Almost as many shoppers are using coupons from email and e-newsletters (49 percent) as they are from the Sunday paper (57 percent).
• Men might be the traditional lovers of tech toys, but when it comes to using technology to enhance shopping, women are ahead of the curve.
• Having children in the household drives accelerated adoption of digital technologies to deliver shopping solutions for busy moms and dads.

"Digital shoppers are just shoppers," said Ben Kennedy, group director of Mobile Marketing at Integer. "Digital shopping tools are illustrative of the continued blurring of the on- and offline spaces. Today's reality is that shoppers use whatever tools they have on hand to make them smarter, savvier shoppers."

Data for The Checkout comes from a national survey conducted by Integer and M/A/R/C in which consumers are asked about their shopping attitudes, shopping behaviors, and economic outlook. Topics range from criteria shoppers use to select retailers, to which in-store stimulus is most likely to drive purchase, to factors that might lead shoppers to leave an aisle empty-handed. The Checkout is available for download at Integer's blog ShopperCulture.com.

The Integer Group is a promotional, retail, and shopper marketing agenciy, and a member of Omnicom Group Inc.