Earlier this week, the New York Times reported on a study by Forrester. The key finding: “Even though just 9 percent of shoppers own tablets, sales from tablets already account for 20 percent of mobile e-commerce sales and 60 percent of tablet owners have used them to shop.” Certainly tablets are set to have a disruptive impact on a variety of services and devices, but it is important to frame “mobile” in the correct light.
The term “mobile” is being thrown around too loosely. Mobility is a relative term, but it is frequently being used in the absolute sense. There are several device attributes that influence the degree to which a device/experience is mobile. These include device size, power or battery life, and availability of content. Size and batter life are self explanatory. The smaller a device the higher degree of mobility it affords users. This of course assumes some constant level of usability. One could easily imagine a device so small it isn’t useful to the end user. In this way, size could have asymptotic characteristics. Size influence on the device’s degree of mobility can also be general (applied to the entire size of the device) or it can be specific to an attribute of the device like screen size, antenna, etc. For power and battery life, the great the longevity of power the greater the degree of mobility provided by the device. Power longevity also doesn’t necessarily mean battery life. The in-vehicle experience readily provides 12V power to devices used in and around vehicles, but these are still mobile devices in the general sense for which we are using it here.
The degree of mobility a device provides is also a function of the content it provides the end user. This content can take many forms and can be delivered in many ways. Content includes video (ie Portable DVD players) and audio (ie portable tape players to MP3 players). It could include maps (ie GPS) or other information (ie data available on the Internet). It can be delivered to the device physically (ie tapes, CDs, DVDs) or digitally. Content delivery influence on mobility is also a function of time. It can be delivered before the device moves into a “mobile” state – this is generally the case with devices requiring physical media. But content is of course increasingly being delivered while the device is in a mobile setting using spectrum. This use to be only really applicable to radio and some TV, but is increasingly applicable to all forms of content. The greater the access to content, the greater degree of mobility the device can provide.
In all of this, mobility is relative. Gaming devices provide a great example of the relative nature of mobility. Gaming devices designed to be “mobile” are more accurately referred to portable gaming devices. While they can be taken outside of the home and they have product attributes that make them relatively attractive mobile devices (battery life, small form factor, portable content etc) they are frequently/predominately used within the home. In this sense they are portable devices more than mobile devices in the absolute sense. the same could be said about notebook computers. They are mobile by all definitions but given a bigger form-factor and less battery life than other devices are generally relegated to traveling within the home or being used in other static locations. Like gaming devices, in many instances mobile devices would be more accurately described as portable because they aren’t necessarily traveling away from the home in their use scenarios.
I’ve written in the past about the difference between “portability” and “pocketability.” Essentially, just because a product isn’t pocketable doesn’t mean it isn’t portable. In the same spirit, just because a device is portable doesn’t make it (absolutely) mobile. With that, lets return to our discussion of tablets and where they fit into “mobile” e-commerce.
Forrester’s research is consistent with CEA’s research on the tablet – the primary location of tablet usage is the living room. This suggests a degree of simultaneous media consumption. Sure, users do take them to other locations – but the use case scenarios that are emerging suggest heavy home use. More, it suggests consumers are using them in relatively static locations. While they might use them at a coffee shop or restaurant, they aren’t using them while traveling to or from those locations. Our research shows consumers are predominately using them in the evening, during the week, from home. So yes, tablets are becoming the go-to devices for e-commerce, but this isn’t mobile shopping in the traditional sense. Smartphones will continue to dominate in-store e-commerce and tablets will gain share in the in-home e-commerce market.
There are still significant implications for retailers. e-Commerce should increasingly cater to the tablet form-factor. It also suggests an app-oriented e-commerce experience might be something a retailer can bring to their customers. But the cannibalization from tablets is hitting other home computing devices more than it is hitting other mobile devices like smartphones.
