Mobile Phones Are Changing Retail. Here's How. (Infographic) Consumers carry access to the Internet around in their pockets now -- and that's upending the rulebook for owners of brick and mortar stores.
By Catherine Clifford •
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Shoppers have the Internet in their pockets. For store owners, that's changing the game.
Almost half of shoppers admit to having participated in "showrooming," or going into a retail store to look at a product and then buying a less expensive version online. That statistic comes from an infographic generated by MobStac, a cloud-based mobile-commerce platform that makes websites and applications for businesses.
Related: 10 Questions to Ask When Optimizing Your Website for Mobile Users
As a retail store owner, you can try to prevent consumers from using their smartphones inside your store. But that's not much more than putting a Band-Aid on a broken leg. Mobile shopping isn't going away.
Instead, retail store owners should engage with customers through mobile technology and give them what they want. Four out of five smartphone owners say they would prefer to be able to read more about products on their devices while shopping in stores, according to the MobStac infographic.
Related: Mobile Commerce Has Completely Exploded (Infographic)
Check out this infographic for more trends in mobile commerce and for ways to make your retail store smartphone-friendly.
