Taiwan entered a mobile shopping era this year with mobile shopping sales breezing past PC shopping, experts revealed on Saturday.
Jacky Wang, vice president of the e-commerce group at Yahoo Taiwan and Hong Kong, and Kuo Brothers co-founder and entrepreneur Jerry Kuo both back up this claim, according to local newspaper United Daily News. They said that sales made by smartphone and other mobile devices first surpassed sales made via PCs in February, and saw 90 per cent in growth in the first half of this year alone.
Consumer behaviour has changed -- shoppers browse on their smartphones to shop during their free time, especially during weekends, Wang analysed. How people value their time on the weekends explains the shift in behaviour. And not using one’s computer was a form of relaxation, Wang said.
Last month, 60 per cent of sales from the Kuo Brothers’ five online shopping sites came from shoppers using mobile devices. Kuo revealed that the smartphone shopping era had developed far more quickly than anticipated.
Sales from people between the ages of 50 and 60 using mobile devices were very strong, Kuo said. The age group was more likely to buy high-priced goods compared with the younger, more technology-savvy generation. Kuo suggested that the smartphone and tablet’s easier accessibility, compared to desktop or notebook PCs, added to their popularity among the older generation of users.
The rise in popularity of shopping using a mobile device has debunked previous myths of how people would be derailed due to smaller font and screen sizes of smartphones and tablets. Kuo said that the font size on the online shopping sites under his brand, managed with his brother Andy Kuo, were optimised according to the user’s screen size.
"Smartphone users can easily adjust their font size and colour setting on their phones as well,” Kuo said.
Shopping with mobile devices gave portal sites, a website that provides a gateway to information in a particular industry, a leg up, Kuo said.
Smartphone users are impulsive shoppers as they usually make their purchases while they are on the go. That makes functions such as ranking by popularity where goods are suggested to buyers as one of the main ways to earn a profit, Kuo stated. He remarked on how this was opposite to how consumers shopped using PCs -- browsing through tens of thousands of products.
According to Yahoo’s statistics, Wang pointed out that 37.1 per cent of smartphone shoppers were more likely to use mobile apps to purchase products by scanning barcodes or QR codes to compare prices. Of those surveyed, 38.4 per cent of shoppers said they looked forward to seeing a GPS function to help locate products in a store with their smartphone.
What was notable is how 51.6 per cent of smartphone users are more likely to complete their purchases were collectors of coupons from traditional brick and motor stores and online, making comparison of discount offers a popular purchasing incentive as well.