UK shoppers have a growing appetite for technological advancements in mobile shopping, an exclusive poll by Populus has revealed.
More than a third of shoppers would like to use their mobile phones to scan shopping on the go in store, in order to keep a running total of spend and speed up the payment process at the checkout, according to the study, which tracked the attitudes of 500 people in the UK to different types of mobile shopping. However, just 3% said they currently do so, indicating that technology in this space is not capitalising on demand.
A third of shoppers would like to use their mobiles in store to track deals at competitor stores to see if they can get a better price on their groceries, the poll found. Eight percent said they were already doing so.
A similar number (28%) said they would like to be alerted to special offers on their mobile phone when close to the relevant store and one in five said they would like to use their mobile phones to find out how and where a product was produced.
Shoppers showed the most hesitation towards the concept of paying for groceries using a mobile phone in store, with a fifth saying they would “strongly resist” this. However, 32% admitted they could imagine doing it in the future.
“Some retailers are pushing the digital angle and trying to move things forward but the evidence seems to suggest that retailers are not capitalising on this,” said Populus director of customer research Gary Muncaster. “The research suggests a latent desire for this especially among the younger generation but the number of people doing it is limited. The logical conclusion is that there’s an unfulfilled need.”
For all poll questions, resistance to new technologies decreased markedly with age, with shoppers aged 25-34 being the most enthusiastic.
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