Price check on line nine?

According to a recent market research survey, consumers are more likely to use mobile technology to browse for prices rather than shop online. The results, released by information technology research and advisory firm Gartner, indicated that whilst finding stores and prices rated highly as a preferred activity for mobile or cellular phone usage, mobile users were more likely to look rather than buy with their phones.

Surveying over 2,000 pre-paid and contract mobile phone users throughout the United States and United Kingdom, the report cross-analyses emergent market trends across the age groups of cellular and mobile phone users.

The key topics addressed in the research pertained to mobile shopping activities including price checking, browsing and product purchasing from a pre-paid or contract mobile handset to determine the likelihood of consumers using such services. In both the U.S. and U.K., the survey respondents indicated that they were more likely to browse than buy, with U.S. respondents being slightly more open to the idea of both than their U.K. counterparts.

A trend of consumers ‘on the go’ was indicated by the preference for checking store locations and item prices in both national mobile markets, although the ‘digital native’ generation (aged 18-27) were far more open to both than the ‘boomer’ generation (aged 43-61).

In the U.S., the ‘digital native’ was 1.98 times more likely to conduct mobile shopping-related activity from their pre-paid and contract mobile phones than the ‘boomer’, whilst the figure for the U.K. stood at 2.63.

These findings confirm the assumption that the market for mobile phone deals and usage is in a more advanced stage in the U.K.

However, the results will surely impact upon the way retailers view the possibility for capturing the mobile market across the board. Compare deals on latest BlackBerry Mobile Phones from online mobile phone shop to buy BlackBerry mobile phones and Sony Ericsson Mobile Phones with New mobile phone offers and deals plans on Bestphoneshop.